Day 424

Friday March 3

For the past week I’ve been looking at a grant opportunity I discovered with The Arts Council, the idea being to secure funding for us to play various care centres. The issue was that the only suitable grant I discovered they were currently welcoming applications for was for a minimum of £100,000 and up to £500,000. We had a good job coming up for which we could create enough expenditure to reach the first mark including paying for shows for six months for which we worked out a figure. Then we started making up the number by adding the cost of transport, which can be included in an application, and a rented rehearsal space for which we started to have other beneficial ideas which would support an application. We didn’t get too far with that but we did think it could be used for free teaching as well as opening it up for other people to use for their projects although there were a few security concerns with that.

A few days ago, after feeling we’d put together a realistic case for an application I started to have a look at the form itself. That was when I discovered that, as we didn’t meet their requirements because we weren’t an organisation we would need written permission from our local body to apply. Balls. With the deadline of next Thursday looming I didn’t think we would have time to get through the bureaucracy to receive such a letter. But that wasn’t going to stop me trying. My first call to the relevant office was Wednesday when the person I wanted wasn’t in. Neither were they in yesterday. So here we are today with the deadline now even closer and tighter.

When I finally get to speak to the right person, he tells me that the deadline for written permission passed over a week ago so we’ve missed this project. Bum. But then he starts to frame this in a much more positive light. ‘It’s extremely unlikely a first time applicant would secure a grant of this size anyway,’ he begins. ‘You have no experience of applying or any demonstrable track record of using grants.’ Fair enough. Won’t argue with that. I really did think it was a bit of a long shot. However, he continues, ‘There is a much more appropriate grant you can apply for which would suit your needs and for which there is no deadline. You can apply anytime.’ He then gives me the relevant home website and starts to talk me through it until we come to the actual grant page. There’s no way I would have found this myself. And yes, the amounts seem much closer to home and much further away from fantasy land. Then he goes on, ‘You can’t just apply for money for an open ended group of shows you may or may not organise. What you have to do is arrange some kind of tour or an amount of dates, work out how much each one would cost and apply for that amount. Of course, costs include what it would be to pay yourselves and that is included in the application. Whatever money you use to pay yourselves will be yours to do what you want with.’ He even says that, if necessary, the cost of a vehicle can be included although with a bit of research we might be able to find an existing one within the organisation that we can use once they’re happy with how we’re going to use it. He finishes with, ‘I strongly suggest you apply for this.’

So that’s it. We now have a potentially viable project to get on and organise. A tour of care homes or maybe even better, a circuit covering London and the surrounding areas, most likely the home counties. Not the most glamorous music job in the world but that’s irrelevant. It is potentially a job playing music which is exactly what this this is all about and has been from the beginning. Afterall, a good friend of mine, and maybe yours – Kevin (Rev R.D O’Trib) – told me he wouldn’t consider me a professional musician until I’d done a dog food commercial. Now, this might not be a dog food commercial but it’s hardly playing at the Royal Albert Hall either. I don’t know if this is all going to come through at all and it will certainly take time, but if it does and is successful, we could well have a very real base on which to build. Certainly the start of a full time or major part time operation. Add the usual gigs on top of that and you really could be away. And as I’ve said before, being cynical about it, once you’re playing care homes and other such societies, you never know who’s grandson or son or any other kind of relative you’re meeting and hopefully entertaining and brightening up.

A couple of Jenn’s friends are town for a catchup. One of them has lived in Camden for 20 years and by all accounts knows everyone. We had a bit of a giggle last time when we first met and realised we had quite a few mutual friends. But when you think about it, that’s really no great surprise. Although he’s not a musical or artistic person himself, those are still the kinds of circles he moves in. As do I. This being Camden, cross pollination of musical and artistic people is highly incestuous.

One of these mutual friends is an ex-actor in a major soap, current West End actor, and he also recently starred in a Sky Atlantic series. I know him because he’s an old regular of the Oxford. Now and then people passing through would recognise him and ask for a photo but 99.9 per cent of the time he just hung out at the bar with the other regulars. He’s invited out to meet us and is with his flatmate who, I’m told, is the bassist in a band which had one of THE megahits of the early 2000s. Apart from that they’ve also had a fairly successful career and are now about to head off on a tour in support of Guns ‘n’ Roses.

For this meetup, after me and Jenn’s friends have been around Camden a bit, we head off to The Pineapple in Ktown. The other two friends arrive and I’ve decided that, for the bassist, I’m just going to meet him as though I would anyone else I’ve just been introduced to. So yes, they come, we all get introduced around and we settle in and have a few drinks. I find myself next to the bassist and, with everyone else in full conversation mode, I suddenly realise I’m humming the main riff of his band’s gigantic hit. Right next to him. I don’t know how long I’ve been doing it when I catch myself and stop. I think, and hope, that the noise in the place is loud enough that he hasn’t heard me.

I guess bassists must gravitate towards each other because I soon end up in quite cool deep discussion mode with him, talking about anything apart from music. Then Jenn starts talking about our recent visit to see Madness at the O2 and he says, as casually as I might mention any of our own venues, ‘I’ve played the O2. It’s really not good for bands.’ I don’t react in the slightest bit to this but if he hadn’t guessed before, surely now he knows I at least have an idea of who he is. His comment has been allowed to pass as unobserved as if he’d said, ‘Oh yeah, the Dog and Duck. I know it. I’ve played there.’ He goes into the acoustics and how it was never designed as a live venue and so suffers as a result. I ask about Wembley Arena which I believe kind of was designed for that purpose. Same opinion. Someone tells him I’m a bassist and he gets interested about that asking what kind of stuff I do. I tell it like it is. Small act playing small venues for occasionally small money. Which he thinks is cool. I mention The Boston Arms which we played not too long ago and he’s really interested to know what it’s like to play there as he knows the place. I give him my own run down then, considering what he’s just said about the larger places, I ask cheekily if he’d rather be playing The Boston Arms or Wembley Arena. His answer is not at all what I was expecting. ‘That’s a very good question. I think I’d at least have a better chance of getting a good sound at the Boston so I’d probably rather play there.’

There’s still no mention of his band and why should there be? But I say, ‘I clearly know you’re a bass player. Do you know the London Bass Show which is happening this weekend?’ He says he does so I ask if he fancies coming along. ‘Not really for me,’ he replies. I’m too shy for that kind of thing.’ But yet in the not too distant future he’ll be sharing some of the biggest stages in the world with one of the biggest bands we’ve ever seen. I’ve heard Justin Timberlake’s shy. Michael Jackson too apparently. And even Robbie Williams has been known to have social doubts. I guess it cuts across more of them than we realise.

After The Pineapple, our two visitors leave us while Jenn’s two friends aren’t ready to go home yet and want a late bar in Ktown. Up the road in Tufnel Park is aforementioned Boston Arms where The Insiders are playing tomorrow night and we suggest that. Fine. The Boston it is. We get there and the place is absolutely jumping. Friday night packed and it’s karaoke night. And this time of night there’s plenty of oil in the wheels. Once the drinks are in we head up to where the main action is, forget any pretence of cool, and just give in to the abandon of it all. This place is big enough but packed out like it is its dimensions seem to have grown by at least 50 per cent and it now looks huge. The energy in the place is high too and we go right along with it. It’s an Irish bar and the Irish full on desire for a good time has come out with heels on tonight. As things crescendo, Jenn says to her friends, ‘Mark’s playing in here tomorrow.’ ‘What? Here?’ they shout, quite impressed. This is more nightclub territory than pub gig. And yes. Tomorrow me and Dan will be facing this crowd armed with nothing more than an acoustic guitar and a bass. I laugh and nonchalantly say, ‘Yes. This is our gig tomorrow.’ If you remember, our trial gig here was on a Wednesday night. And when I come here it’s generally for the football although also the occasional mid week late one. I’ve never seen it on a Friday night though. Not like this anyway. Now I’m here I can only imagine what it’s like late on a Saturday. I carry on dancing and laughing but I don’t feel the nonchalance I’m displaying as I look around and think, ‘Yes. We’re playing here tomorrow night.’ I don’t know if I suddenly feel nervous but it’s fair to say a certain amount of doubt just entered that definitely wasn’t there before.

Day 425

Saturday March 4

And here we are. Day one of The London Bass Show. The last two years of this I’ve given a full account of all the doings and toings. I’ve I’m not going to do that this year and will just concentrate on a few notable events if any happen. That’s the theory anyway. Let’s see how I get on with it. If you want to know what the whole experience is like, it’s all there in the epic 10,000 word account of last year. That thing took me forever to write and stressed me out as I got so far behind writing about other ongoing stuff that was happening. The sheer amount of what I had before to write also overwhelmed me a little so I’m going to try not to do that to myself this time. However, I’m of course very happy to have got it down. And I did a pretty full on job the year before even though I only went to the Saturday night get together and then the Sunday. For this account I’m not even going to try to list all the great people I meet either as it’s beyond inevitable that I’ll miss someone so I’m just going to see who pops up as I tell it. And unlike the previous two shows I’m not keeping a notebook of what’s going on so I won’t have the forensic record I had before.

There is something specific I want to get sorted at this one but I’ll have to talk to Scott privately for that.

I’ve aimed to arrive for 11:30 to see Zoltan Dekany in the new SBL room and manage to arrive just after that. I head to the room and the massive presence of SBL’s Stu looms over me. My first encounter with Team SBL which I will learn is there in some force. ‘Sorry, you can’t come in,’ he says. ‘There are people backed right up to behind this door. It really isn’t possible to get anyone else in.’ Oh well. Dmitry Lisenko is in the auditorium now. I’ve never heard of him but he’s on and I’m here so that’s where I go. I’m treated to a quite wonderful half hour or so of original songs featuring Dmitry on bass and his wife Mara on vocals. I discover later they’re called Karmafree.

After that one of the first people I see in the cafeteria area is Mike Concannon. Surprise number one. He’d said he wasn’t going to be here as he’d been somewhat waylaid but then realised he could make it which is great to see. He asks if I’ve seen Siby yet? Surprise number two. What? Siby’s here? I had no idea. ‘No-one did,’ he says. She didn’t tell anyone. He tells me she’s in the SBL room with Kevin. The next seminar’s starting soon and it’s Cody Wright. I was going to say the quite brilliant Cody Wright but feel safe to assume that every seminar/event is held by someone quite brilliant. Well, Cody’s first so he gets it. I get in this time although yes, the place is still packed, as it will continue to be all weeked. And there he is doing his thing and talking about how he does it. Now here’s my first sighting of the weekend of Scott Devine, or rather Scott’s trainers through the mass of people standing at the back. And yep. Over there in the middle of the chairs I catch the familiar sight of Siby’s hair SBL member spotting over, I sit back to enjoy the seminar, which features Scott jamming with Cody which is a bit of an event in itself.

Once it’s all done, I have a huge greet with a ton of SBL people. Then out of them all Siby appears and we have a massively emotional hug. Very aptly, our first meeting. Right there in the very centre of the SBL room. As Cody finishes, Scott comes up and talks to us a little about what else is going to happen. About now I see Hutch outside the door that’s just opened. An SBLer I’ve got to know quite well as far as Campus activity goes but have never met. I feel guilty there as I want to go and say hi but I don’t want to walk out while Scott’s talking. Would be rude. When Scott finishes I start to walk out of the door to say hi but see quite a queue has formed. I declare quickly, ‘Sorry. I am not leaving this room.’ Because the next event up is Scott himself and I am not going to miss that. I start looking around for where I’m going to sit and just happen to fall in with Geoff Chalmers who’s just walked in. We have a big hello and I just naturally end up sitting next to him and we’re able to have a really good catchup as Scott’s preparing himself on the stage.

When the queue outside starts to get let in, I finally meet Hutch and it’s really cool as we very quickly fall into a natural conversation as though we already knew each other and were hanging out just yesterday. But before long out attention has to turn to the stage.

Scott’s show is an exercise in demonstrating the language of music communication and to do this he’s brought together two musicians who he deliberately has never met before – Mike Outram on guitar and Cleverson Silva on drums. Scott can’t even talk to Cleverson who’s Brazilian and has barely any English. That just helps demonstrate even more how a jam situation can work and how musicians communicate during songs without being able to talk. With Scott it turns into a true masterclass of the form. It’s a session that has people staring on in amazement at times, not least at the incredible Mr Silva who becomes a talking point of the weekend.

This next thing happens quite a bit so I’ll cover it in one go. I discover this weekend that Scott is a born teacher. Yes, we kind of knew that anyway but I discover it at a whole different level. As this is his room and he’s introducing people before and thanking them after and keeping us up to date with what’s going on, he gets quite a lot of mic time. So often he morphs into teaching mode probably without even realising it. You’re sitting there watching him introducing someone then all of a sudden you think, ‘I don’t know exactly when it started but he’s teaching me something here.’ He catches himself a few times and says variations of, ‘Sorry. I’ve just started teaching again.’ Keep it coming.

After Scott I miss the next SBL seminar to head off to the masterclass room to see Dave Ellefson. I’ve lapsed quite a bit and can’t claim encyclopaedic knowledge of Megadeth’s past few albums, but everything up to Youthanasia I am very well informed of and, like everyone else, was and remain a huge fan of Rust In Peace. So that’s their first ten years covered. I even have a signed album of Rust In Piece my uncle got when he went along to one of their meet and greets in Manchester that I couldn’t go to. I’m thrilled to see Dave up close as he performs a few bass playalongs to classic Megadeth tracks and talks about life and bass in general. I manage a question in the Q&A section which gets him talking about up and down picking and just down picking – a huge topic in plectrum playing. And in the process of this we discover he became a plectrum player purely because he couldn’t afford a big amp when he first started so had to use a plectrum to generate a bit more volume. I’ve been there and done that myself.

As I’m leaving at the end there’s a crowd of people wanting to meet and talk to him. I just manage to catch him as I pass by to shake his hand and utter a slightly silly sounding, ‘Great to meet you.’ I can barely claim this to have been a meeting. But I did ask him a question and he did look at me practically the entire time he was answering it so I have definitely engaged with him. But I don’t realise what shaking his hand means until I leave the room and start meeting people in the cafeteria area. Oh cafeteria area. Try saying that after a few drinks. In fact, never arrange to meet anyone in one after a few drinks especially if you don’t know where it is as there’s no way you’ll be able to ask anyone for directions. I’ve digressed haven’t I? Well yeah. As soon as I start encountering people I find I’ve suddenly become ridiculously giddy with excitement. ‘I’ve just met Dave Ellefson. I’ve just met Dave Ellefson.’ I’m massively surprised at the levels I manage to achieve. Really did not see that coming.

So far it’s been really hard to get a private word with Scott. We’ve said hello and had little chats in between knots of people but he really is massively and understandably in demand. And, apart from that, very busy and generally occupied with the SBL room. I do manage to ask if he could make time for a quick private chat as I have something I’d really like to talk about and he says absolutely, no problem. I keep placing myself near to him in between seminars waiting for him to be alone but I also try to do this a little discretely. I don’t want to be like a nuisance fly buzzing around him. But when I say this to someone on Team SBL they tell me I kind of have to be like that as it will be the only way get hold of him. I also don’t want to push it too much because I know I also have tomorrow. I’m in here after the Dave Ellefson masterclass and everything’s being packed away for the day. After a while of trying to be as discrete as possible, Scott comes up to me. ‘I’ve just got a few errands to run,’ he says. ‘Stay here and I’ll be back in 10 minutes or so.’ Excellent. Thankyou very much. But not long after that the venue’s clear out gang is on the scene and everyone has to leave. It’s now approaching 6pm and the place is closing.

My mind starts to turn towards tonight. I’ve done my maths on the time and figure I can hang around until a little after 8pm before having to leave for tonight’s gig which starts at 11. Maybe I’ll catch Scott in the pub before I have to head off. As to where that will be, there’s been some confusion. But enough people in the know have said The Hand And Flower which was where the afterparty was held last year. Myself and a bunch of people head over there. Myself and Mr Cookie Monster – Andrew McMahon make ourselves comfortable at the bar while a few other people make themselves comfortable having dinner. We’re happy to just have a drink. We get invited over a few times but each time decide we’re quite happy at the bar. We’ve got a good little vibe going over here. I also have a sudden realisation that I’m totally wiped out. I think I’ve just been so wired the whole day. Mentally totally switched on, taking everything in and being at maximum energy for every conversation. The same thing happened at the previous shows. Just as we’ve got second drinks, it’s announced that everyone’s over at The Albion and everyone leaves. Bugger. Just got another drink. Right. Last year after seeing the band in The Hand And Flower I said I was going to try to play with the band at the next event. Well here we are. I’m also aware Scott might be at The Albion too and that could be my chance to ask him about the book. And to hang out with him and anyone else in general too. This is about far more than ulterior motive although yes that is quite powerful too. I tell Andrew I’m happy to leave my pint. It’s a fiver and the opportunity to get involved across the road is worth far more. So yes we’re going to do that but then I have the bright idea that I have an empty water bottle in my bag. To Andrew’s surprise and laughter the whole thing goes into that. I’m ready.

We get across to meet Rachel, Daisy and Dom and set ourselves up near the front as the band’s about to start with Dave Marks on bass who I go and say hi to as he’s having a quick pre gig chill. Just as they get ready to begin he announces that after they’ve done a few songs the floor will be open for anyone who wants to get up. Oh. Yes please. I know just about everyone in the place will want to play but with a gig on tonight I have places to go and people to see. In between songs I manage to catch Dave’s attention and tell him I have to go do a gig. Could I possibly go on first? No problem he says.

So jam announced and I get the call up followed by Dom on drums which is cool. And they bring up a new guitarist. I really wasn’t expecting the full band to be replaced and I’m not entirely sure about this. The vocalist is still there but we have to do something for her to sing to first. We all get up there and she asks what song we’re going to do. As can happen when you’re put right on the spot at first I draw a complete blank. I’ve already been trying to have a think about this but no. There’s a ton of songs now I know but up there when you’re trying to think of one everyone will be OK with it’s a bit different. Seven Nation Army pops into my head so I let it out of my mouth. No, says the vocalist quite definitively. Fine. I mention another but can’t remember what it is. The guitarist doesn’t know it. Vocalist is starting to get frustrated and the crowd will soon get restless. Without saying anything I just launch into the bass riff of Higher Ground. Yes,Shouts the vocalist. As I’m playing that the guitarist is just looking at me blankly and saying, ‘Is it in E minor?’ That’s enough to tell me she doesn’t know the song so there’s no point in pursuing it. I stop and again, suggestions aren’t coming. Right. Enough of this.We’ve got to do something. I just call a fast blues in G. One two three four. It’s been a slow, semi painful launch but we’re off. I’m a little disappointed to see the singer isn’t sticking around. I thought she would have done something with us. But no. This will now be purely instrumental. We let the guitar take the lead and I’m happy to look up and see at least a few people are dancing. Are they really into it or have they just decided to come here for a good time and dance at anything? I have no idea. The guitarist has done her few leady bits and Dom decides it’s time for me to take a solo so calls it. Is it any good? I’m not at all sure. I think I can safely say I’ve done better solos but hey, sometimes you’re right on it and sometimes you’re not. Maybe here I’m somewhere in between. Not long after that Dom takes a drum solo before the three of us manage to lock in again to take it to the end. I don’t think you could claim it at all as a classic of the genre but at the end we’re all still standing and all in one piece. The next bass player’s on his way up and that’s my cue to get out of there. I say bye to all the guys, a thankyou very much to Dave and I’m off to play a real gig. Alright, it was only a jam session in here but last year I made it a big goal to play the London Bass Show afterparty. And now I just have.

My plan now is to go straight to Dan’s and get all the gear to the venue. Once we’ve done that I’ll run home and get my bass. Not having to go home between here and Dan’s will save quite a lot of time and is the reason I’ve been able to hang around as late as I have. This all goes smoothly enough but when we get in the venue, well that’s the problem. We can barely get in the venue. It’s coming up to 10:30 and the massively hyped David Hayes/ Tony Bellew fight is just about to begin. The place is absolutely heaving and just about everybody is at least slightly north of the sensible number of pints. All we can do is struggle to get through the crowd and drop our gear off under and slightly behind the big screen. The whole stage area is filled with two table loads of people who aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. This is crazy. All my thoughts from last night about this place come flooding back but this time twice as strong. We’re two guys with an acoustic guitar and a bass. And we’re going to have to entertain this huge already drunken crowd. And after the big fight event which anyone remotely interested in boxing has been talking about for weeks. Which also hasn’t even yet begun. A situation for quite decent sized, well fronted up cojones.

But as for time, a little pressure’s been taken off as we’re clearly not starting at 11pm. So I’m able to take a leisurely walk home and pick my bass up.

I’m able to get back and still watch the fight which is generating a crazy atmosphere in the bar with everyone cheering on the underdog Bellew. The place goes mad when he wins after 11 dramatic rounds. I don’t like this next bit so much as the two boxers who’ve been trash talking each other to obscene levels in the build up come together in a joint interview for a love-in which is almost as over the top. Great that they’re showing respect and all that. But with all that supposed animosity before? What are you supposed to believe? Yeah, we know it’s all hype but this one was ridiculous. Still, great fight.

It’s our turn to get ready to rumble. Now we have to keep this party going which is the bit that’s had me on a recurring edge since last night and now I can see that was just the warm up.The bar staff and bouncers help us clear out our area and I collect glasses while dan unpacks the gear. We get it all fired up and begin a soundcheck in which we have to push our levels a bit to be suitable for the still hyped up mass in front of us and right the way to the back of the bar. By the time everything’s ready it’s just about midnight which means a straight two hour shoot through to two O’Clock. We hit hard with some of our most rocking songs right at the beginning and people are immediately singing along with a few coming up front to dance. In here we’ve got the bass up loud to really push things on and it works as we have people dancing right at the very back past the glass partition that creates a smaller alove over there. The boys over to our right playing pool are singing along and I know we’re really fine when I see PJ the hard to please owner just chilling out and playing pool as well. He’s clearly relaxed about it all. When we finish, an encore is demanded and of course very happily given.

PJ comes over as we’re packing up and says, ‘Well done lads.’ Promising opening. Then, But you did play a few slower songs at the start there which I wasn’t too sure about.’ I say we were adding a bit of contrast and shade after the big start and people seemed to like it. He doesn’t argue the point and I don’t push mine. The message is clear. He didn’t care too much for that vibe and would prefer things to be a bit less subtle. Recieved. However, he continues, ‘I really liked a lot of the rockier stuff you did and you had the people dancing. Give me a call on Monday and we’ll sort some more dates out.’ Brilliant.

Quite a few other guys come and talk to us after that including one who says he’s a guitarist and asks if me and Dan wouldn’t mind joining up with him and a drummer friend for some jams in a studio that they’ll pay for. As always, you never know if these things are going to be followed through and he’s clearly made his fair share of trips to the bar. But he’s lucid enough to be fair. He says what did it for him was how confident we looked when setting up. If only he knew.

I’ve not eaten for quite a while so that gets rectified on my way home followed by a post gig beer. By the time I get to bed it’s almost 5am. I plan on being back at the Olympia for Geoff Chalmers’ double bass masterclass which begins in six and a half hours time. I set my alarm for nine.

Day 426

Sunday March 5

Unbelievably when my alarm goes off at nine I bounce up and I’m ready. Quick shower, wide awake again and off to see Geoff. With the buses deciding to favour me this morning I arrive at the Olympia and walk into the SBL room just as he’s getting ready to start.

What follows is a brilliant introduction to the double bass for people transitioning from electric. It’s a bit of an inspired topic in my opinion because most of the people here are electric players with little experience of its huge brother although most of us have at least the inkling of an aspiration to have a go somewhere down the line. I’ve had my dabbles but like I’ve said here before, they’ve really been dabbles of dabbles. What’s really cool is that afterwards, with Geoff having invited anyone up who fancies a go, Anita – Heket – is the first one up on the stage area to do just that. I can’t help thinking that she’s known as the U-bass queen, playing the smallest basses out there, and now here she is having a play of pretty much the biggest. The juxtaposition does tickle me a little.

Apart from forays out in between seminars, I stay in this room all day, next taking in Overwater boss and master luthier Chris May’s talk on building electric basses and a really engaging history of their evolution. There is a luthier room here this year and I neglect to check it out. So I made a point of attending this talk because I really should know a little more about how these things are put together and at least how to do basic running repairs.

Next up is Steve Lawson whose looper course I recently started studying just as me and Dan bought our loop pedal. I was quite thrilled to meet him yesterday and to be able to tell him how useful his course was and how I intended to continue following it. What he has for us today is a walk through his incredibly intimidating pedal board/computer setup. Sorry. Did I say intimidating? I meant terrifying. But it’s a little comforting to hear him say that even he doesn’t always know what sounds are going to come out when he starts putting stuff in. He just reacts to whatever happens and goes on layering, all the while having to deal any unpredictability that’s just happened. All part of the fun as far as he’s concerned. I said not so long ago that I’m not really a pedal guy. But if I was I don’t think I’d look anywhere else for instruction. As you’d expect, a true master of what he does and he creates sounds I don’t think any of us will ever hear again which, he says, is a massive part of the charm of it all.

Throughout most of today I keep at least one eye on Scott, waiting for that moment when he might be alone but it really isn’t happening. He’s a true celebrity round these parts and so many people are rightly thrilled to have a chance to meet the guy who’s inspired and taught them so much. I really don’t want to get in the way of any of that. As you would expect he gives everyone as much time as he can and greets everyone as though they’re the first person he’s met this weekend. I have to say Geoff gets his fair share of all this too and handles it with every bit as well. Posing for photographs and chatting for as long as people want to. A defining image of Scott is created when, in between seminars and after taking forever to be able to walk through the room he finally gets out to do whatever it is he’s on his way to do. As he does so it’s like he has a full on entourage as people who still haven’t manage to say hi or to pass on their thoughts walk with him into the main hall.

We’re getting ready for the last seminar of the weekend. Phil Mann. The room’s filling up but Scott wants it maxed out. He says he’s going to stand outside the door and usher passers by in. I think this is my chance so after a minute or so I go outside to see if we can get that private chat. ‘Hey Scott. Are we good to talk now?’ ‘Yeah.’ The trademark smile. ‘But we’ll have to be quick. Phil’s starting in a minute.’ No problem. What is a problem is that we’re surrounded by basses making their bass noises and clashing together like competing storm systems over the Atlantic. The cacophonous drone the Bass Show has almost made its signature sound. There’s no question of us running off to find a quiet spot. We have to talk here.

I enter with zero preamble. ‘I’ve about to start looking for agents to get Mark’s Diaries published.’ ‘Fantastic,’ comes the very encouraging reply. I’ve thought quite a bit about what my next words would be and they come out just as imagined. ‘Would you at at all be prepared to consider endorsing them?’ ‘Yeah, no problem Mark.’ After all I’ve built myself up to ask this, his reply is as casual as if I’ve just asked if he can watch my bag for a minute. He really is very cool with it. I think my shoulders suddenly relax and drop an inch or two as I really have been a little bit nervous about this. More, really, that I wouldn’t get the chance to ask but then yes, also as to what his reaction would be. I go on and ask about a few more bits and pieces that I’ve thought of relating to all that and, to use his phrase, he’s super positive about it all but I’ll leave that between us for now. It’s enough to say that I’m thrilled, ecstatic, absolutely overjoyed by it all really. So much so that I can’t help myself from jumping up and down right there. I’m actually jumping for joy and thanking him. Scott responds to that by giving me a big hug. As we break from that and shake hands, it’s time for Phil’s seminar. Talk about maximising time. The whole conversation has probably lasted less than two minutes but everything that needed to be talked about was covered. In we go for Phil.

If I was nervous before, a minute or so after taking my seat, out of nowhere I’m hit by another wave of nervousness that I wasn’t expecting at all as I have a sudden realisation. Now the proposed book has Scott’s endorsement, by extension so does my bass development and everything I’m trying to achieve in that field. It’s like he’s not just endorsing the book, he’s also endorsing me. I think there’s always been some pressure by the mere fact that this Diary exists and has been out there from the start to whatever extent. But this is an actual real responsibility now and something I have to live up to. Something I have to continue to work towards and be worthy of. I feel like I’ve just crossed a virtual threshold into another realm and into a special flavour of daunting. There is not one aspect of that I would want to change.

Phil Mann is always engaging and inspiring and today is no different. He’s also come with an important message. Learn your triads. His lesson today is that despite all his immense amounts of training and qualifications, everything happened for him after he had spent an intense period of study learning triads. As for everything else he says, I won’t mess up his stories. And besides, I should leave it all for him to tell either around SBL which I’m sure he will sooner or later, or if you happen to meet him either in person or at another seminar somewhere. However, I will pass on the huge amount of kudos he places on Scott for the advent of Scottsbasslessons and also his earlier shoutout to Chris May who took Scott under his wing all those years ago and helped to guide him down the bass path that led ultimately to this very room today and all the amazing people and players we’ve seen take part in the masterclasses over the weekend.

With the end of Phil’s seminar comes the end of the events in the SBL room and essentially the end of the London Bass Show. I catch up with him briefly and buy the second volume of his Chord Tone Concepts – 7^th arpeggios. I’m going to be sure to start on page one after his warning during his talk. ‘It’s to be started right from the beginning. If you start halfway through I won’t be happy. If you start on the last page I will find you.’

People are going to be milling around here for a while and I’m no different. I stay and chat with Lefty Harry and Hutch. Geoff has also been kind enough to let me leave my bass in here all day as I intend to go to the Blues Kitchen later on. I wasn’t really planning on it but quite a few people mentioned the possibility of a visit yesterday, not least Siby so of course I’m going to go and bring along anyone who fancies it. Harry and Hutch would like to take a look at my bass and I go and get it out. ‘There it is,’ says Hutch. ‘The famous Washburn. That bass has got some mojo.’ It certainly has. I’ve said here before that I don’t think I chose the bass. Harry Potter wand style I think it chose me. And I tell them I’m offended it was ever all on its own on a wall in a shop where just anyone could have come and picked it up. I think I’m even more offended that no-one thought to buy it. I tell them the story that when I went to buy it I wasn’t too happy with the action so asked if they could take it up with no obligation to buy. They took it out back and, as a potentially paying customer and still very much a looking customer, I felt I now had the right to go round the shop and try whatever they had I liked the look of. So that’s what I did. Right up to the most expensive basses they had. By the time I’d finished that exercise and they brought out the modified Washburn, not yet My modified Washburn, I knew that I could have walked into any shop in Denmark Street with a blank cheque and still would have left London that day with that bass.

Now the whole show is done, I can say it’s been the best London Bass Show of the three I’ve attended and that is mostly down to the SBL room which was standing room only practically the whole time. Congratulations Scott, Geoff and Team SBL. I said I wasn’t going to name names unless they came up naturally in here for fear of missing someone out but special mention has to go to Travis and to Stu, the guy who said I couldn’t go into Zoltan’s class yesterday as it was full. Through my SBL journey I’ve got to know Travis a bit as have many of you as he has become a more and more integral part of SBL and I’m delighted for him that he has and I tell him so. And Stu was just very cool as we had a bit of a chat about the development of SBL and how he goes way way back with Scott and they’re now working together on this great venture. It was also great this weekend to catch up again with Geoff Mr Crane who accompanied us on our ill fated venture to The Hand And Flower yesterday. Oh, and Andrew – Cookie Monster – McMahon’s cookies and other treats without which the LBS would no longer be complete.

At my first weekend here I went over to the bar afterwards and had a pint and a burger on my own. Last year it was just me and Daniel Wester after I bumped into him by chance after the last auditorium show. This year a whole slew of us head off to the Hand And Flower for dinner. As we’re sitting at our massive table contemplating the menu, Siby, Heket and Rachel start to work on their own three part harmony version of a massive recent chart hit. I think it’s fair to say I’ve got to know Rachel a little better this weekend as well and made the point of telling her she has all the best bass faces. She and the other two girls are working on their own little thing down there but they really entertain the table with some brilliant three part harmonies for the start of a project that I predict is going to get a lot of SBL love. Apart from that we all just revel in the great vibes continuing from the weekend and settle in for a few drinks and excellent roast dinners. I say plural but you should understand we only have one each. After a couple of hours so of this there are a few emotional goodbyes and then the SBL posse heads off to catch a bus to Camden and the Blues Kitchen.

This is made up of myself, of course, Daniel Wester, Siby and Kevin, Gianni ChangNoy and Mattheus – I really hope I spelled his name right. Please feel free to correct me if I haven’t. We get a bus very quickly and then it’s about 45 minutes to Camden during which we intermittently make quite a lot of noise at the front of the top deck, the only way to travel on a London bus, or any double decker bus come to it.

The bus stops practically outside The Blues Kitchen and as we approach it, one one of the bouncers says, ‘Wow this is a lot of people.’ Into it we go and everyone gets their first look at the place and trips are made to the bar. As I get deeper in, I realise that there are hardly any regulars here this week and that continues although we do get a trickle. What that means is that a whole load of new people get up and play. The place is also packed with tourists tonight and they’re all excitedly hanging out at the front making the stage a particularly cool place to be tonight. And we even manage to get a table that has somehow and completely inadvertently become my regular table here. Just off to the left right at the front and right on the edge of the dancefloor area.

I’ve texted ahead to let the organisers know tonight that I’m bringing a crowd with two guys on holiday who would like to play. I sent one yesterday as well when it became clear that something like this was on the cards. I receive a reply that all is cool just as we get off the bus and are walking towards it.

I’m the first of us to be called up and I’m going to be with Alan. As a bass player you don’t get much opportunity to really open up with Alan as he just wants it tight and grooving. But that’s fine. I do what I do and a lot of it is what bass playing is all about with the Blues. And yep, there’s the SBL crowd at the front giving me their full support. Despite my previous planning and forewarning, as I finish I’m told, ‘Sorry but we only have room for one of your friends.’

Now I don’t expect any special treatment but having made it clear that I was bringing in people from abroad who were here just for the weekend and that two of them wanted to play, I do find it just a little bit mean spirited that this has happened. It’s happened because one particular person, who has the list of players within in his control and who plays here every week, has decided to play bass on a few extra sets that any number of other people could have played on. I’m disappointed but don’t hesitate. ‘It has to be Mattheus. The other one got to play here last year.’ Sorry Daniel. But when I tell him what’s just happened and my thinking, he completely understands. But yes, I do also give him my opinion on my errant BK friend.

Mattheus gets up and he has the great fortune to be put with Freddie McVintage and settles in right behind him delivering a powerhouse of a performance on my bass. I can tell Freddie’s perfectly comfortable with him too as he sets off on all his trademark moves to a delighted and packed front of house.

Then the finales of the night begin, led by Mikey Christer which Siby and Kevin stick around to see before having to call it a night with early flights booked. But not before Siby tells me how delighted she is to have seen the place and to have experienced four Blues Kitchen Diary legends – legends is her word but we can leave it in. Alan, Freddie, Mikey, and I can’t remember who the other one was. Not a bad night’s work when the regulars were a bit thin on the ground although none of this was really any the poorer for their absence. That is no disrespect to them, but instead all respect to so many of the new people we’ve seen tonight including a full Japanese band who got up and stormed the place. I am given a flyer but unfortunately manage to lose it so I can’t tell you who they are. They were seriously impressive.

Towards the end, my SBL friends all say goodnight and head off into London in a taxi together. I stay right to the end and catch the fantastic Brett Mcgloughlin before heading home myself. I think it’s fair to say I’ve squeezed out every last drop of this particular London Bass Show Weekend. Goodnight.

Day 427

Monday March 6

From the last few days before the weekend and now as a result of yesterday, I suddenly have quite a bit to do. First there’s a proposal to finish for agents into which I have to add that the Diaries have Scott Devine’s endorsement. Then I have to get to work organising a tour/circuit of care centres to prepare for the grant. But before all that I have a decent sized Spanish project I recieved on Friday night with a deadline of this morning. I told them straight away I wouldn’t even be able to begin it until this morning hopefully to get it to them tonight or tomorrow morning. But before I get to that, I feel my priority is completing the first draft of the book proposal. With that done I decide to sit on it to have a final look over tomorrow before starting to send it.

Also coming into this week I have my first Musicians’ Union meeting to think about which is coming up on Thursday. I’m hoping to also get some thoughts and advice from them on the grant and maybe identifying someone who can help with it.

Another thing for today’s agenda is to call PJ at The Boston but when I do he says he doesn’t have his diary with him. Try again on Wednesday.

Bloody hell. I receive an email that reveals the main possibility I’ve been rejected for job after job with the casting agency, even including huge crowd scenes, which has really left me perplexed and frustrated – they require a DBS certificate which I didn’t have. This is to prove that I have no criminal record. I’ll leave alone the whys and wherefores of how this oversight has happened but the email includes a link to where I can apply for one. Hopefully once that’s sorted out I might start getting confirmation notices rather than release emails and then finally be able to begin working as a TV and movie extra.

This all reminds me of an installment of office comic strip in Dilbert from the days before the internet was omnipitent. A department is closing down because they haven’t won any contracts for six months. One of the managers asks his intern to fax a letter to head office to this effect. Everyone looks on horrified as the intern puts the letter in the fax machine the wrong way round meaning it will come out the other end blank and the implication hits them all at the same time. Yep. That’s been the person responsible for the menial job of faxing all their contract proposals.

Day 428

Tuesday March 7

Going over the book proposal and my messages to Scott covering what we talked about at the bass show takes a lot longer than I thought and it’s all a lot longer than I planned. Among other things, I cover what’s happening with The Insiders and the Middle East possibility. I still have idea what’s going on there but that’s all part of the story. Three hours after sending the message to him, with which I send all the proposal bits, I get a text from the Middle East guys. Alright, they’re only looking for a guitarist not a bass player but yep. Still going on. I guess I’ve just got to wait for the next vacancy to come up. And when and if it does, I’ve been warned that it could require availabilty for an immediate start so it really could just kick off out of nowhere.

Now I’ve got the proposal finished I start sending it out. Each agent wants it presented a little differently so it has to be modified for each of them. You’ve got to treat every individual proposal as a job application. It’s not a case of just mailshotting. After working on that for a bit I get on with researching care homes and preparing a new package and introduction for them

Then I start applying for my DBS for the extra work which, if all goes well, I see as money that can start coming in now. But the internet keeps crashing so I can’t upload the required files.

Onto the calls to the care homes and it’s like the bars all over again with bosses not in or not available. Maybe Tuesday’s the bad day or maybe I’m just unlucky today. I don’t know. But with the DBS frustration and now that, I feel it’s time to call it a day or drive myself crazy.

Day 429

Wednesday March 8

PJ at the Boston calls me. He wants us every month and gives me dates up to September starting on May 20. From that venue being a totally closed shop we’re in.

Then I get emails from two major agents within a minute.

One of them is an offer from Scarlett, the international one. Unfortunately we’re booked on that date. Oh well.

The next one is from an agent that, as far as I can see, is THE one to be involved in, certainly as central London is concerned. They like what they’ve heard and want us to audition for them. However, they only hold auditions on their designated recruitment days and don’t yet have such a day set aside for London. They’ll let us know when they do and confirm the invitation.

After fruitlessly going to some care orgnisations it occurs to me that there must be voluntary organisations that organise tours and events and that kind of thing. And yes. I find some and start applying and contacting.

I get my first bite from the care home project as a Camden organisation gets in touch. The lady there has been desperately searching for someone to play some of their places and asks if I’m free to meet her sometime next week. We make a date.

After hitting some practice and catching up with writing, my plan for tonight is to do a little more practice before getting stuck into the latest Spanish project. I’m going to hit it for an hour or two and then pick up what’s left first thing tomorrow morning, quite possibly for the same amount of time again. Maybe another hour to finish it off. But before all that, I decide to pop to the local shop for a few bits. On the way back I realise I’ve forgotten grapefruit juice. It was the main reason I went so I really want it. I start walking back but don’t get there. Instead I bump into Luca, the owner/manager of the Italian restaurant by my house. He’s off to The Boston for a pint with Chef Dave of The Vine. Would I like to come along. OK. I can have a drink or two and get home early enough to tackle the project for a bit. It’ll just be a later night than expected. So off I go with him, my backpack laden with the earlier shopping.

We walk in to meet Dave with the football on the telly. Barcelona V PSG in the last 16 of the Champions’ League. Cool. With PSG having won the first game 4-0, effectively ending the tie and causing this one to be all but a dead rubber, I’d completely forgotten about it. When we walk in, it’s at 71 minutes in the second leg with Barcelona needing three goals to score. They’re winning this game 3-1 which means they’re now meandering to a 5-3 aggregate defeat. They need three goals to win it; with the away goals rule, a 5-5 draw won’t cut if for them. It’s clearly over and not worth watching so we just hang out at the bar chatting over a few drinks. A casual glance up at the TV a little while later shows just two minutes of normal time remaining with Barcelona still needing those three goals. Like I said, not worth thinking about. Then Neymar scores a fantastic free kick. The pub wakes up a bit but it’s still not really game on. Five minutes injury time is posted up. Oh. OK. The whole pub gets caught up in the action as Barca get a penalty a minute or so over the 90. Scored by Neymar. Now, unbelievably, incredibly, the impossible is suddenly on. And yep. With momentum fully on their side, Barca sends the whole football world into a frenzy with a lastest of last minute goals to win the whole thing and go into the quarters. And yes, the whole pub explodes and goes crazy as well. Throughout the evening, the guys have been generous with the shots and pints and I can’t claim full innocence in this either. A few times I tried to say goodbye and slip off but they weren’t having it. Now the shots come out again. Yes I have my own mind but to be fair I really don’t take much persuading. It’s all great fun but the night goes on. And on. From simply trying to return to the shop to buy the forgotten grapefruit juice before starting work, I end up on an all nighter. This comes to a staggeringly drunken end in Aces And Eights, the bar across the road from the Boston.

Now a word about the footy. There has been some shouting about dodgy refereeing and conning for the penalties but, while I do go mad at that kind of stuff, if the other team keeps you out of their area you can’t get a penalty. And the referee didn’t score Neymar’s free kick or make his wonderful pass for the final goal which was just as wonderfully finished. Despite all the controversy that will linger over it in the coming days, it remains the most breathtaking comeback and end to a game I’ve ever seen. Apart from maybe this one.

Day 430

Thursday March 9

When I was training to be a journalist we were once given a weekend assignment. Nothing too mad about that except I had a friend coming down to London that Friday afternoon for the weekend from Warrington. He’d never been to London before. We had a great time seeing all the sights and going out each night. I saw him off on the coach on Sunday evening. For some reason I can’t remember, my worksheets had been taken for me on Friday by someone and they had it at their house somewhere in south London. I went down there and collected it, arriving at 9pm. My classmate couldn’t believe how late I was. ‘It’s impossible for you to get this done on time,’ she said, staring at me with a level of incredulity I’d never encountered before. ‘I just finished it an hour or so ago. It took me all weekend.’ Bear in mind this was a tough post grad course that had already managed to reduce a few people to tears. To be told this was an impossible task was no small thing. ‘I’ll do it,’ I said. A bit cocky of me considering I had no idea what I was up against. ‘Well good luck,’ she replied. When I took the papers out for a quick look on the tube home I was staggered. Bloody hell this really was a whole weekend’s work. And now, not long before the rest of my classmates were turning their thoughts to going to bed to be ready for Monday morning, I still hadn’t even got started. And I was about to attempt this on the back of a heavy weekend.

I got home at 9:30, turned any clock I had towards the wall and began. After I don’t really know how long, I went outside for a walk, deliberately avoiding discovering the time. I walked for about 20 minutes, the biting cold really helping to force me back to full alertness, then returned to complete it. Only then did I look at the clock. It was almost 4am. With one short break it had taken me well over six hours. In my entire journalistic career still to come, I never had a one off-job or deadline as intense as that. I just really wish I could remember the reaction of my classmate when I handed it in with everyone else the next morning. Well, just a few hours later really. I’m also not entirely sure how I got through that day’s two hour shorthand class with which we started everyday.

I’m reminded of that this morning when I wake to the deadline for my Spanish company. Balls. I didn’t do a single thing on it last night. Now I’ve got to get it done this morning. I may well have said this before but in my entire journalistic career, including training, I never missed a single deadline. I’m not going to miss this one either. Especially not for something as self inflicted as the worst hangover I’ve had for some considerable time. I prise myself out of bed, get the computer working and open up the files. I stumble into it. But there’s no point in rushing. I’ve got time as long as I keep a steady rhythm. It’s a very painful morning and when it’s finally finished I allow myself a moment of triumph before sending it off. As soon as that’s done I go back to bed, disbelieving that as tired and battered as I’ve been so far, I’ve still managed to complete the whole job. This isn’t quite as epic as that journo training assignment but it was enough to remind me of it, and it certainly earns its mention in the same pages.

I rouse myself again a little after one which gives me time to shower before heading off to the next part of the day. My first Musicians’ Union committee meeting. By now I’ve started to come round a bit and by the time I get there I’m almost a fully functioning person again. This is essentially a meeting about how to modernise the union a little. How to fully engage younger musicians and help them to see the union as being something they want to be a part of. There are nine people in the room so a very manageable number for a discussion and arranged in a kind or round table manner. As we get into things, what comes through quite clearly is that the union isn’t particularly up to date in social media or even some of the more fundamental workings of the internet. So much is still done by leaflet which the members here think is just a touch archaic.

We also speak a little about open days for non members and the form that could take. What would get people talking to people they’ve not met before to create a sense of a network? I suggest some kind of live show with members playing then opening it up for anyone to come and play. I talk about this for a little and say somthing like, ‘The best networking events I’ve ever seen are jam sessions. It’s so easy to talk to people. Anyone who’s been on stage suddenly becomes completely accessible from an opening a conversation point of view because anyone can go up to them and praise what they’ve just done and bang. Two people are talking who’ve never met before. This goes double for anyone who decides to play as they’ve now shown the room they’re a guitarist or drummer or whatever and maybe someone out there is looking for one of them. And of course once you’ve played you’ve shared something with the people on the stage and that can become an initial bonding process. And apart from all that, provided the music isn’t too loud, which is of major importance, everyone out there can talk with a lively backdrop and it can even facilitate conversation.’ I tell them here about the time me and Dan played backing music for a networking event, not wholly dissimilar to what we’re talking about here. The feedback we received was that we not only added a sense of life to the room but also helped people who had never met to use what we were doing as something of a conversation starter. I’m not entirely convinced my suggestion is received with particular enthusiasm by the chair members but it does generate some discussion around the table.

There’s also talk of a web revamp, maybe including podcasts and video sessions. The behind the times feeling comes up again when one of the chair people starts talking about the logistics of making videos. Not in a negative sense but considering out loud about how such a thing could be done and what it would entail in terms of resources and financing. It sounds like he’s talking at least 10 years ago, maybe more. Someone cuts through that. ‘All you need now is an Ipad or even a phone. That’s your video camera. Some people talking and that’s your video. We have great interviews in the Musicians’ Union monthly magazine. Film or record some of them and put them out on the website.’ I join in by suggesting a white part of the room which could be used as a backdrop just to continue the theme that everything we need is right here, including the very thing we’re talking about now. We’re told there is a podcast available to which someone replies it was someone reading out a leaflet or some kind of list. Hardly the kind of thing to grab anyone’s attention. I suggest here they could do worse than check out Scottsbasslessons and see what ideas they could take from that site in terms of podcasts, the Academy Show and other elements which make up the site. A few people in here know it well and yes, they think SBL could certainly be used as a source of ideas for content for improving the MU’s own website.

By the end of the two hours I feel I’ve contributed as much as anyone else in what has been a quite productive and lively session. And I mean lively in its positive sense, not as in argumentative. However, I sense a certain amount of irony in the fact that in a meeting which discussed the importance networking everyone leaves quite quickly and I don’t get the chance to meet any of my fellow committee members. But at least I’m able to catch a few of the chair members for a chat before I leave. With this I take the opportunity to tell them about the care homes project and ask if they have any thoughts. What comes back is a few places I hadn’t thought of to look for funding. When the time’s right I’ll check them out.

I get back home an email from The Calf in Clapham who had told me of their budget for live music a few days ago. It fell quite short of our expectations and I politely told them so. I thought that was the end of it but now they’ve upped their offer. Still not quite to what we were asking for but a little more than halfway between our two positions so a sensible come back. I’m happy with it so check with Dan and he says yes too. So back to them now to see what dates they have to offer.

Day 431

Friday March 10

In contacting care homes during this week I had the idea of calling head offices of organisations. I thought this was a pretty good call as I could pull in multiple centres with one contact. So far, while people I’ve spoken to have liked the idea, they’ve been saying the best way to proceed would be to contact each individual centre. I’ve been setting them to the side and persevering.

Today I call a lady at a care centre who I had a meeting with back in February last year. I’d been holding off on calling her until I’d spoken to a few people. I was hoping to call her when a few things had been set up. Nothing so far so here we go. She remembers me and is very happy to hear about the development of the idea. She says they have 11 homes across London. A key colleague of hers is back next week and she says she’ll talk to him about the possibility of, in her words, farming us out to them. Now that’s more like it.

A few more calls and I have another small hit as I talk to an operations manager who is happy to coordinate our email with her different events managers across five of their homes in London and the home counties. A little while later I reach one other person who gives me an email address for the person who coordinates between their homes. Right. We have a beginning. There’s a long way to go but today I’ve made three contacts covering over 20 centres. Add to that a meeting set up for next week with another organisation and we suddenly have the beginnings of a project to talk about.

Day 433

Sunday March 12

Our monthly jaunt to The Marquis by Traf Square. The chart for attendance of this one would look quite interesting and maybe even a bit symmetrical. We start to a bar with just a few people in. There’s a trickle of arrivals until we have something resembling a respectable audience. Then a whole influx of people as a couple of touring pub crawlers turn up and we suddenly have a crowd. With that having been presented to us we break out some of our big numbers that are usually in the home strait of the set. But we have enough of a repertoire now that we know we’re going to be able to cover that later on. Not so long ago doing something like that could have left us a bit thin towards the end so I guess this little exercise demonstrates decent enough progress. The big crowd lasts for about half an hour before the pub crawlers decide it’s time to do more crawling. Other tourists melt away to do more touring and by the time we finish we’re playing to pretty much the same amount of people as when we started. An interesting trajectory of an audience.

Afterwards I catch the tail end of a conversation between Dan and Kristoff, today’s bar manager with Tommy off for this one. ‘So it’s looking like you’re not going to the Middle East then?’ ‘No. I really like what we’re doing now and want to carry on with it and see where it can go.’ Me and Dan have been having this conversation on and off for a little while although I’ve not been diarying it. That’s the way he’s been thinking since some way back. Now, for the first time, I’m about to say that I’m starting to get on the same page. Especially with the new project and with the agents we’ve been dealing with lately, not to mention another agent audition next week. The care home project this week has started showing signs of promise and yes, I think we could have the makings of creating our own opportunities. I want to add my own piece and this will be the first time Dan’s heard me voice this way of thinking. But with a few other people with us, the conversation moves on so I stay quiet on it for now.

Day 434

Monday March 13

It’s time to go across the road to The Vine and see how they’re doing for business. Edyta welcomes me warmly enough but within a minute of us talking shop it’s clear her the corporate bosses, for better or worse, have closed the purse strings. ‘We can’t even buy flowers for the place at the moment,’ she says. I don’t say it, but it looks like this is finished as a venue. ‘OK, I won’t keep you any longer,’ I say. ‘You know where I am.’ ‘Yes I do,’ she replied graciously. So that’s that over. Balls.

I return home two minutes later and throw my diary down in frustration. Can’t even get back into The Vine. The bars have been a massive disappointment for some time now and this brings it all back again.

Casually I decide to check my emails. There’s one from the Middle East guys which I open without thinking too much even though its subject is ‘Upcoming contracts.’ When I see the whole thing I’m stopped completely short. You could say it’s been a while but they’re now looking for people from successful auditionees to form a whole bunch of bands to go to various countries. It’s going to move fast. They want to know what I would be interested in. The promo video shoot will take place in a couple of weeks followed by a number of rehearsals in their studios before heading out in mid June.

Now in the sudden cold light of possibility laid out in black and white, everything I’ve been thinking for the past week gets thrown up into the air and comes down as doubt. Yes, despite the far harder launch than I ever imagined, I really believe in The Insiders and the possibilities we have. And after telling Dan for so long that I would go when the call came even if he had decided it wasn’t for him anymore, I’m all of a sudden not so sure I can do that. For the first time since I can remember I’m faced with two choices that I stone cold hard can’t decide between. I truly, totally, fully have no idea what to do. Jenn comes in from some errands a little while later and I tell her about this new development. We talk it over for a while but I still have no idea which way to turn. And there’s no ignoring this. I have to turn one way. A decision has to be made. It takes a little while but I realise I’m at the crossroads of a life defining event. Take it up and everything goes in that direction with all that is to follow. Or stay here and take my chances with The Insiders which moves everything 180 degrees that way. Then if that fails to make any of the inroads we’re so optimistic about, saying no to this could well turn into a regret that will always be there. Which is Jenn’s take on the situation. To which I reply that most of the time regret doesn’t come from things you do do but things you don’t. ‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘It’s up to you. Why don’t you make a list of all the pros and cons and decide that way?’ That really isn’t such a bad idea. ‘What do you want out of this anyway? You said coming to London was the big thing.’ ‘Yes, so I could have the opportunity to do things like this. I went for loads of similar stuff in Madrid and never even got close.’ ‘And what are you trying to achieve by doing this?’ ‘Doing something like this is what I’ve been trying to achieve. Forget what may or may not come out out of it. This is what I’ve been trying to get out of everything else. As for what’s after, who knows? Having this on my CV would be a pretty good start for that. But just to have an opportunity like this is why I’ve been doing everything since I got to London.’ Yet for all that I still really have no idea what I’m going to do.

I have a realisation. While I’m standing here in a state of procrastination that would make Hamlet jealous, any number of people are jumping all over the email and registering their interest. When I mention this, Jenn says, ‘Why don’t you just tell them yes and then you can always change your mind later?’ ‘No. No way am I doing that. If I say yes, I have to be in all the way. If I say yes then change my mind later that’s it. At least if I say no, or even ignore it, I might still get another chance down the line. ‘

It’s clear we’re going to get nowhere anytime soon and she has to go off to meet a friend anyway. I’m left drifting on a sea of indecision and paralysed as to what to do next. All thoughts of continuing with the care home project today disappears. I can’t write, can’t practice, can’t look at anything else on my to do list. I’m completely absorbed in this now but absolutely nothing is coming clear or even close to it. What am I going to do? I have to speak to Dan. And not on the phone. I have to sit down with him somewhere and talk about this. I know he doesn’t want to go which is what’s making this so hard. I also know he will have been sent the same email so by now he probably knows what I know and is wondering himself what I’m going to do about it although I think he thinks he already knows the answer. That’s because I didn’t have the chance yesterday to tell him about the doubts I’d been having. This next conversation has to happen before anything else. I make the call and tell him of the email. He hasn’t seen it but then he hasn’t checked his email today yet. But learning about it doesn’t seem to have had any major effect on his thoughts. But he thinks it’s really cool and that I should go for it. ‘No,’ I say. We need to talk. Are you free?’ He is. Great. We make a plan to meet in an hour or so in The Pineapple in Ktown.

He calls me when he’s in the area and he says he’ll wait for me in a coffee shop just off the high street. I go there and we step out into what is a lovely day to walk round the corner to the bar. We’re already talking about it as we walk. ‘Your reaction did ease my mind a bit,’ I say as an opening. ‘You really want to do it and I think you should,’ is his reply. ‘Yeah, but I really like what we’re doing now and I want to follow that through.’ ‘I’m very happy to hear you say that.’ We leave the subject alone for now and talk about general bits and pieces until we’re in The Pineapple where we both order soft drinks.

As we take a seat, Dan knows part of my thinking is to stay as he’s been saying he wants to. But now the offer is on the table again, he unexpectedly finds himself considering it too. We already know we wouldn’t be going over into the same bands. He would be going either to a trio as a singer/guitarist or there’s another option here that hasn’t come up before. Solo singer guitarist. This is what really appeals to him. With the email we received is examples of each of the kinds of act they want to form. He thinks for a solo person they’d be looking for someone who can perform to a whole array of backing tracks. ‘Why not have a look,’ I say. He does, finding the email on his phone and downloading the sample video. It’s a guy on his own singing with a guitar and no other effects. On seeing that, Dan’s whole attitude to the thing changes. ‘I can do that.’ ‘Completely you can. And better.’ We sit in silence for a while. I allow it to go on a little more before saying, ‘What are you thinking?’ ‘I’m thinking I want to go now,’ he laughs gently. ‘That would make my decision a whole lot easier,’ I reply. ‘Afterall, if I go and you don’t, you can still do the same shows here but solo. If you go and I don’t all people will have is a few bass notes and harmonies to nothing.’ We have a good laugh at the absurdity of that and play out a few verses of what it would be like.

He still has a few doubts but I tell him the same thing I told Jenn earlier on about regretting those things you don’t do, not the ones you do. ‘Anyway, as we said when this first came up months ago, we can return and pick The Insiders up again, and from a much higher point of ability. Possibly from a much higher point of contacts. We might even end up in the same place over there. And what about in a couple of years’ time or for the rest of our lives when we talk about having this opportunity and not taking it. What reasons are we going to give? How is it going to sound? How is it going to feel?’ Dan’s starting to find it all funny and can’t quite believe he’s contemplating it seriously again. But my words have sailed through the air to land firmly in the centre of the target. Now the silences are more telling than the talking and I let them go on as we both contemplate the position. I break the silence to say, ‘If you’re really considering it, I have to do it too. Like I said, there’s no point me staying if you’re going. My dilemma is all about The Insiders and the fact that things finally look like they’re starting to happen.’ ‘Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,’ he laughs again.

I have a thought I don’t like very much. ‘While we’re here considering all this…’ Dan finishes the sentence. ‘Other people are replying and saying yes.’ ‘Absolutley.’

We’ve been there about half an hour now and his saying yes is starting to look like only a matter of time. I gently probe the issue. ‘You’re really thinking about doing this now aren’t you?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you think you want to do it?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘That sounds like it to me. A bit of a pause and he smiles, looking like someone who’s definitely made up their mind. ‘I’ve decided. I’m doing it.’ Then he laughs. ‘I guess I’m going to the Middle East now.’ I guess we both are. He asks me for help formulating an email on his phone. No, I say. I think you need to be on your computer to do that. Read their email properly and consider your reply rather than just a short message you might send on your phone. He sets it aside and we chink glasses. Then we’re out of there. We both have an email to send.

I get home and reply as soon as I can. Yes I’m up for it. As for which kind of band, I say I have no preference. Four to seven piece I was told I was good for. I’ll take it however it comes down.

I get a quick reply telling me when the first promo shoots are and asking if I’m available for them. End of March/ beginning of April. I confirm immediately that I will indeed be available and receive another quick reply that I’ll receive further information soon about actual dates. I put in a call to Dan to see how he’s getting on and he’s just had a similar email conversation. However, we still feel this is far from confirmed. All that’s left now is to wait.

Day 435

Tuesday March 14

Last time we thought we were off to the Middle East we ceased all activity then found it hard to pick things up again when we realised it was dragging on a bit too long. I’m sure we missed out on a lot of December bookings because of that. We’re not going to make the same mistake again so back to it.

The first thing I wake up to is a gig offer at a venue in Watford in mid May. I confirm that and it goes in the diary.

And now it’s time to head off to a meeting about the care home project. That was arranged last week and, despite possible changing events, I’ve got to keep on this.

It’s a really positive meeting in the middle of a mildly busy canteen on a high street just a little north of the centre. After the lady has heard a little more about our plans, and possibly got a slight measure of what I’m about and, by extension, The Insiders, she says it all sounds great and that she will coordinate with her two other centres and get balls rolling with them. She’s also sure more can come of this as she confirms my thoughts that a lot of these people and organisations are connected. ‘Once you reach out and start being positive about things and offering to help, it can be amazing what comes back,’ she says. On the reaching out aspect of it, I tell her that we’d be happy to play a free show or two for her organisation, irrespective of funding. Let’s just get this thing started. ‘Well I have an idea on that,’ she says. ‘We’re going to be having a fair in one of the parks nearby here in June. Would you like to play at that?’ It’s part of a wider weekend commemoration event to Jo Cox, a young London MP who was murdered last year. Yep. Put us down. Paid or not, that’s another show in the book. She adds, ‘Bring plenty of cards. You don’t know who you could meet or what it could lead to.’ Yes we’ve all heard that plenty of times before. Come play a free show. It will be great for your exposure. But for once, I think this one really will be.

I return home to a couple of emails, the first offering us a gig in Watford at a venue called The Round Bush. That gets confirmed. The next one is from a care home coordinator wanting to put me in touch with a few of the bosses of their centres.

Not long after I get a really positive and appreciative email from a massive organisation asking how they can get involved in what we’re doing. They represent programmes in over 20 London boroughs which they think would be keen to come on board with this. They want to know what the next steps will be. I suggest a meeting and we get that booked.

A few more interested emails on the project pop in, most emanating from one organisation. This is from a lady I met back in February last year when we first started thinking about it. She’s really pulling for us now and has asked if we could start doing free gigs before being funded to which I replied yes. Then another gig comes in as the Clapham venue settles on a date in July which I confirm we can do

This sets off a whole flurry of emails with enquiries from more interested centres and yet more emails as they reply to my replies. I don’t keep figures on this kind of thing but I can tell you definitively that this is the single busiest day The Insiders’ email account has ever seen. By some distance.

After so long of trying to make things happen for The Insiders, something really seems to be building here. If anything, I should now be thinking even more about not pursuing the Middle East option and continuing to just carry on pushing this. But like you saw yesterday, I’m now keeping all options open.

Day 436

Wednesday March 15

We’ve decided that we’ll play a few requested free shows as long as we can get to them easily enough. I speak to Dan on the phone and he thinks I should just say yes to everything. We have a few reasons for this and some of them are purely charitable and benevolent. However, we also think it will help when it comes to the grant application should we get that far without other events overtaking us. Hopefully by then we’ll have some recommendations and we can also show a track record of providing the service. And the more we play, the more we’ll be heard about which could bring other people in. Talking about this, we come to the conclusion that it can’t be that different from the pub game or any other business. When working at The Oxford, we knew a lot of what was happening in other pubs across London, even those outside the company. And we knew a lot of other bar staff from other places too. Surely the care home industry is very similar in that respect which means that if we do well, word will spread.

In other news, our street party date gets confirmed for mid June, another centre says they’re interested in getting involved, a bar in Clapham books us for a date in July, and I take a free show with a centre that says they would like to have us every three to four weeks. And we have our audition with an agency coming up on Sunday. Once again, things are really happening here.

Day 437

Thursday March 16

With our little project having moved past the gently blowing on kindling stage and with other things standing by to overtake it, I don’t think I should push it too much right now. We have the people who are interested and that’s fine for now. Especially considering the upcoming meeting on Tuesday with the major player in care home world.

So the focus for today is rehearsal which we start by playing all the songs we’ve not been playing live recently to keep them in the game. We follow that by adding two new songs, one of which I’ll be singing – My Girl by Madness. That takes my songs up to three now. And 20 songs played so far today. The other is our first full song with the loop pedal which is a massive success. We record after quite a bit of practice with it on other songs as Dan pounds out the rhythms on his guitar to set us off. We’re also able to work this into the intros to songs so there’s no protracted period as he gets the loop going. We also discover that if it doesn’t quite work which, to be fair it does most of the time, we can just carry on almost uninterrupted while he deletes that effort and sets another loop up. We find this is all giving us a much bigger sound. Our first effort at a full song like that gets recorded. Here it is.

Looping done and we try another experiment. I’ve been telling the care home people we can take requests of songs we’ve never played, call them up on an ipad and put together pretty decent versions of them on the spot. This has been more confidence than anything else. Now I suggest to Dan we actually try it out to see it in practice. I throw out a couple of random songs we might realistically be asked to do which are way out of our normal repertoire. And yes. Chords and lyrics up and we’re able to play them to a standard we’re happy with. Right. I can keep saying it then.

Not a bad bit of progress for one rehearsal. Now our thoughts can turn to Sunday and the agent audition.

Day 440

Sunday March 19

Today’s agency audition is with GT Artistes run by Tony Littley. A check a few days ago showed the venue, Hartly Social Club near the village of Longfield, was not very accessible by public transport so we made the decision to hire a car. And what a great decision that proves to be. We load up from Dan’s, drive out of London and deep into the countryside. If we’d tried to do it by public transport it would have meant two overground trains and no idea how many stairs in the change with all our gear. Then it would have also been a bus ride from the train station to the actual venue. And once we’re in the vicinity of the social club and driving past one green field after another we realise buses here might not run with the every five minute frequency we’re used to. So yes. A very good decision, especially considering an overground train return for the two of us probably wouldn’t have cost much less than the hire car for the six hours we have it.

We were instructed to arrive at 12:15 to be ready for 1pm. We do that and are met by a fully working and open bar in a huge long room at the end of which is a stage flanked by two dart boards. There’s a big gap between the bar and the dancefloor/stage area so the handful of locals here will be way over there but that still means this is to be essentially a public audition. Despite his formal sounding emails suggesting punctuality would be appreciated, Tony doesn’t bother to turn up until quarter past one. As he ambles down the bar towards us, we think it’s just another regular come to cautiously check us out and say hi until we realise he’s walking with just a tad more purpose than that. ‘Tony,’ he says. ‘Mark.’ ‘Ah. You’re Mark.’ That would be the one. He greets me with a handshake that I suppose might be warm if you left it in the sun for an hour or two. Then he says a cursory hello to Dan. ‘I’m very busy,’ he says when the three of us come together in front of the stage. ‘I won’t be sticking around to talk business afterwards. I tend not to as I don’t like to talk business in front of this lot.’ What? That lot way over there who are so far away they wouldn’t have a clue if we started a full on raging argument over here? Not to mention the fact that we’re right next to an open trade exit leading to an empty car park where I suppose we might be overheard by a few birds. OK. Guess you can’t be too careful. These days they might be mic-ed up government agents. He continues, ‘I prefer to speak the day after so I’ll give you a call tomorrow, OK?’ Fine. I suppose. He goes on, ‘I’ll be over there. Give me thirty to forty minutes. No less than 30, no more than 45.’ Got it. ‘So you’ll be leaving sometime during that?’ I ask. ‘Oh no. I’ll stay and hear the whole thing,’ is his gracious reply. As he slithers away like we now know only Tony can, Dan whispers to me, ‘He seems like a bit of a ducker and diver.’ Seems? Well, we’re here now anyway. Let’s do it.

In preparing the setlist we thought about just blasting through a greatest hits set but then went for a précis of our usual structure of a good solid mid paced introduction followed by a bit of light and shade before going all out at the end. So he’s perched at the bar all the way over there in among the locals, sitting facing the bar rather than watching what we’re doing, while we’re now playing to an empty dancefloor in the middle of a bright sunny day. In the middle of our second song he decides to show us his back as he waddles off to the bathroom, or wherever it is he goes to. We’re now essentially playing to no-one as we’re hardly here to entertain the locals. But entertain them it seems we are doing as they start to pay attention and wander away from the bar to stand in the middle of the floor watching us. As we get into our set, they get more into it and the applauses start to get louder and more sustained. Not bad signs. Yet, 20 minutes in and halfway through a song, Tony finishes his pint, gets up and leaves, turning to us for a little wave. Me and Dan look at each other and give a shrug. We finish the song and I’m all for packing up but Dan says, ‘The people here seem to be enjoying it. Let’s give them a few more.’ OK. We jump straight to our finale set for a few more songs then we’re done and go and get a cup of tea while having a mingle with an appreciative and thankful mini audience.

Then it’s time to pack up and get the car back before the hire runs out and our Ford Focus turns into a Lamborghini. Or something like that. Dan follows the sat nav the same as on the way here. But on the return trip, instead of taking us round that quite big metropolis we live in the middle of like it should, it decides to take us right through it. We don’t realise that’s happening until it’s too late. Driving through central London is definitely something you do not want to try. I did it with a group of friends once when we took a wrong turn on the way to see Bon Jovi at Wembley Stadium when it still had the twin towers. After four hours of gridlocked traffic, what had been an excited high spirited group of friends on the way to their big rock concert of the year had become five very sullen individuals indeed and at least one couple had fallen out bad enough to head into the show separately as soon as we arrived. And we’d missed one of the support bands we’d all really wanted to see – Ugly Kid Joe. I never did get to see them.

But today we get off lightly. It’s Sunday so the traffic really isn’t that bad. Instead, what happens is a really cool trip through the sites of London. We first realise we’re not going to escape the centre when we see we’re driving right past the high rise buildings of Canary Wharf. Then it’s right into the heart of London itself and past St Paul’s Cathedral, right by Tower Bridge, but sadly not across it. That’s not our route. Then past the Tower of London before coming out the north side and onto Camden and home. It’s a seriously cool route and even now as I’m writing this I’m giving myself a good telling off for not having taken any pictures. I would say next time but like I said, driving through that part of town is not a good thing. Unless you get lucky on a Sunday.

Day 441

Monday March 20

We were going to wait until tomorrow to see what was happening with the Middle East project, but when I get to rehearsal Dan tells me he’s already sent an email and got a reply. They’re still organising dates for putting bands together and when they’re going to be sent out. So that’s OK for now.

Today is pretty much a consolidation of what we did on Thursday with emphasis on the looper pedal as we go through songs we know and establish beats to them. At first we think this will be a long process as we go through the whole set but then we remember our experience with harmonising. Yes we did start going through the whole set but the more we did it the more we, in the words of a former great bandmate, got better at getting better. Gradually we found ourselves singing harmonies naturally where required without having to go through the process of, ‘OK, I’ll sing this, you sing that. Go.’ We suspect it will be the same with the looper. Right now we’re working on individual songs and finding the rhythms for them which is the hardest part. Dan has control of the pedal and he’s quite confident that before long he’ll be able to imagine the song we’re about to play and establish something that will work with it. I have no doubt that will indeed be the case. And once we’re able to establish something quicker, as time goes on, that something will also become better.

After a lot of fun with the pedal I’m off to meet Jenn for dinner at a bar in Camden Lock. On the way, walking down Chalk Farm Road, a strip with a lot of live music bars as well as Camden’s famous markets, I see Joe, the Blues Kitchen house drummer. He’s sat behind a drum kit on an otherwise empty stage in The Monarch with his back to the big window which looks out onto the street. I tap on the window and he turns, says hi and motions that I should come in. I do to say hi properly and there’s Ed as well, one of the BK jam organisers. I say hi to him to and the penny drops. This is their every third Monday of the month jam. What an awkward date. I explain to Ed that I’ve missed it quite a few times because of that. Who thinks of the third Monday? ‘Yeah, it’s been a bit like that here too,’ he says. ‘One night we got here and the venue forgot it was on.’ That might explain the time I did remember to go, only to find nothing was happening.Well they’re here now and setting up and he asks if I’m going to play. ‘I wasn’t planning to but thanks. I’ve just come from rehearsal and I’m off to meet a friend for dinner now. I might be back later and will fully understand if your list is full.’ ‘Well come back anyway,’ he says. ‘I’ll be able to get you a free beer.’ I say thanks and add that I may well return later. With that, I leave them to continue setting up.

Me and Jenn arrive at the place around the same time and are able to get a window table looking out over the canal, bridge and market. I make a special point with myself not to rush dinner or drinks for the sake of getting to the jam. If I get to it I do. If I don’t I don’t. I do and Jenn is up for coming along too to keep the night going.

It’s only five minutes down the road back towards Dan’s and it’s all bouncing when we walk in. Quite a few BK regulars are there with guitarist Alan accompanying our entrance as we bump straight into Freddie. Hugs there and hugs and high fives in the immediate area as well with a whole bunch of familiar faces both on the floor in front of the stage and the raised seating area to our left looking into the venue.

Freddy’s with his guitarist Justin and we rock out in front of the stage with Jenn. A few jams after Alan Ed points down to our little party and says, ‘Do you lot want to come up as one?’ That’s it. I’m with Freddie tonight. Not only is this every bit the full on rocking experience I expected but there’s the added bonus of this particular stage having a huge window behind it out onto the street and right in front of a bus stop. This bus stop is currently occupied by a few tourists and I decide to have some fun as I turn to face them and play for them every bit as the audience in front of us. One of them even starts filming. This is whole new way of playing. Metallica might have cornered this market a long time ago but it’s the first time I’ve had a 180º audience.

Once things with Freddie have come to an end, Ed comes up to take the bass for the last jam to end the night as the house band gets welcomed back up. It’s only later that I remember Ed’s words about this possibly being the last jam there. If that’s to be the case then I would only have been twice – to the first one when I was the very first jammer to be invited on stage, and the last one when I was the last jammer to be invited up. What a potentially mad symmetry.

We haven’t heard anything from Tony.

Day 441

Tuesday March 21

I have that meeting with the major care organisation today so researching them a little is the first thing I do, along with seeing if I can find out anything about the person I’m meeting. Yep. There are a few charitable events I discover so that could give us something else to talk about later.

The building is in the north end of central London so in a busy enough place but not right in the heart. And also at my end of the city. I’m shown up to the second floor where she meets me in a small reception area before leading me through to the boardroom that looks down on the street and contains a table with seven or eight chairs around it. Small but comfortable. By the smell, feel and orientation of it, not to mention the flipchart board in the corner, I’m unexpectedly transported back to my English teaching days in Madrid when, everyday I would travel all over the city to set myself up in rooms exactly like this one to face another five or six expectant or bored students. Their professional range would cover anything from clerical staff to top executive level. I tell her all this as I have my little reminiscence.

When we get to business, she says she’s really excited about the project and she seems almost as keen to get it going as we are. I say my bit on it then she pulls out a printout containing a list of nine names. These, she says, are managers of centres within her organisation who have already said they are interested in participating. ‘And I sent your email out to everyone just four days ago,’ she says. ‘I’m sure there will be a lot more to come back.’ We talk about regularity and making this viable for applying for funding and she says, ‘These nine centres, I’m sure, would all take you twice a month.’ Bloody hell. That’s just a start here. If that all comes through that’s the project right there. Just to consolidate while we’re here, we already have one centre that would want us every three to four weeks and the first show there is booked. Then, with the organisation that centre came from, there are at least three other centres interested and waiting to confirm dates. And with the meeting I had last week, we have our June outdoor event and two centres there which are expected to take us. Now, here in this meeting alone, we suddenly potentially have enough to fill a whole circuit assuming everyone doesn’t want us on the same day each month.

‘So we’ll talk when you’re ready to organise things a bit nearer the time and see where we are,’ she says.

‘No,’ I reply smiling. ‘The time is now. Tell everyone interested to let us know the dates of each month they would like, or the frequency with which they would like us to visit. Once we’ve got that, we can add it to what else we have and we’re good to go.’

She really likes that ‘this is it’ attitude and says, ‘OK then. I’ll get it rolling and let you know where we are.’ Fantastic. Job done. She sees me out, I go down to the street and make a call. ‘Dan,’ I say, ‘I’ve just broken this thing wide open in one meeting. Are you home? I want to fill you in.’ He is.

So round to Dan’s I go and tell him all about the meeting and give him the brochure I was given on the organisation. It really is far reaching with a lot of different social services. Then we get to thinking about Sunday. No we’ve still not heard from Tony. There and then we decide we have no interest in working with him. He said he’d call us on Monday and hasn’t done that so he’s failed the first test of doing what he said he would do. These auditions work both ways.

Off home to catch up on a few things then out to the Fiddler’s Elbow jam. There are loads of bass players tonight and very good ones too so I only get to play the once but that’s absolutely fine. Well, it looks like I’m only going to play the once but towards the end Glynn the house bass player sees an opportunity to leave early and not have to risk the last train home. With that I’m given the last set of the night which I very much take with thanks.

Day 443

Friday March 24

I get a call from PJ at the Boston Arms. Can we play Saturday the 15^th? A quick check with Dan and yes we can. So now our monthly run at the Boston is starting a month early.

Day 446

Monday March 27

On the calling trail again and catching up with the bars. Here’s one I’ve been dealing with since December and it’s always been, ‘Call back next month and we’ll be able to sort you out.’ I last called in February and was told to try in March as they were planning to do some live stuff for the summer. The call goes in. I bet you’d take all week to guess what happened. OK. You got it. The guy doesn’t work there anymore. Yayyyyy. Set of steak knives for you. And the guy I need to talk to isn’t there until the end of the week. So we start again.

We get a request from Tommy to be part of an all day show on April 22 organised by The Marquis. What form it takes and what the pay is, if any, I don’t know and don’t ask. But I confirm with him that we’re on for this Sunday, the first of the month as usual and get an affirmative. He also says he’s got a meeting tomorrow regarding the other bars in his group and plans to give another push to get us into them. We can cover all this when we play his place on Sunday.

And another home comes on board so that and the bits with Tommy make up for the little annoyance above.

Day 447

Tuesday March 28

Two more homes today. With one I talk provisional dates that I have to sort out with Dan while other one wants me to come in and talk to them next Tuesday and see the space which they say is quite big.

So across three organisations, the total number of care homes interested now comes to 16 with a one off outdoor show also arranged in conjunction with one of the parent groups. It could be more but I’ve been reluctant to push this thing too much for now, preferring instead to concentrate on the people who’ve responded so far. And I even feel a little bit guilty about that but we are doing free shows for anyone who wants one, irrespective of funding and before even applying. So that does help assuage the guilt a bit.

I see threads all the time about bands having this or that problem with a member or an agent. It’s usually a member and they’ve usually been in the band quite a while. I won’t be so smug as to say I won’t encounter situations like this in the future but I have learnt that people can give you warning signs early on. For example, in the first few rehearsals maybe they come completely unprepared. Or haven’t learnt anything at all. My advice, although I often don’t send it as it’s not always appreciated, is ‘get rid. Now. Cos it aint going to improve.’ We did just that with that with a cajon player, remember? And he was a friend and we’d invited him in. Tony is just one big warning sign.

To that end I’ve written an email for him. I’ve sent it to Dan to make sure he’s cool with it as this is in his name as well afterall. He loves it. The funniest thing he’s seen all day, he says. What? Only today? But before it goes to Tony, I want to give our new mutual friend the benefit of the doubt. That is to make sure he hasn’t been run over by a bus or anything. I get the email ready to go and put the call in. I’m as polite as I can be while maintaining a neutral tone. He tells me he’s crazy busy but was planning on calling me tomorrow. Yep. That sounds about right. I refuse to believe anything he says so I tell him now not to waste his time. We’re not interested in working with him and I’ll send him an email to confirm it. He doesn’t really know what to say to that and is still blustering and gibbering randomly when I hang up. Then I hit send.

Below is the email in full. It’s the most lacerating thing I’ve ever sent to anyone. I like to think that below the happy-go-luckiness that skates along the surface, the Diaries show some level of determination and a bit of a work ethic. But yes, I do have a vicious side as well. For the first time in the Diaries, here it is. Some of you may want to look away. Any brackets and italics are notes for Diary readers and were not in the original email.

Dear Tony

We would like to thankyou for your time last Sunday. However, that’s not possible as you didn’t even have the courtesy to give us that. Not even after we drove all the way from Camden to the Hartley Social club – in a car we hired for the occasion – set up and took down all our gear and played a 45 minute set which we had planned especially for you. We should have walked out the second you told us you weren’t even going to stick around at the end. And that when you’d arrived ten minutes late after having had the temerity to lecture us on the importance of punctuality. You then briefly walked out less then ten minutes into our performance only to return and gaze at the bar all the way across the room from us while we were playing FOR YOU. Again, you then left before we’d even finished after assuring us you wouldn’t do that.

By the time we hadn’t heard from you on Tuesday we’d decided we wanted nothing to do with you. You said you would be in touch on Monday with your thoughts and couldn’t even manage that. First very simple test failed – do what you say you’re going to do. Yes. Newsflash. Auditions go both ways and you’d failed yours in so many ways in the first few minutes. Why we even played our first note for you we have no idea and we’re frankly annoyed we didn’t just take our gear down and leave the moment you said you weren’t going to give us a second of your time once the performance was over. And spare us a repeat of your hollow excuse of not wanting to talk business in front of ‘friends.’ The stage was far away from any ears and there was a whole world of outside to go to.

There’s absolutely nothing you can come back with. No level of justification or outrage. You can’t even come back to us and complain about the content of any of this because it’s all verifiably true and not in any way ruder or less disrespectful than how you’ve treated us. Neither can you say anything like, ‘Sorry, you weren’t for me,’ ‘You’re not what I’m looking for,’ There were bits I didn’t like.’ You’ve even lost the right to say, ‘You’re simply not good enough.’ Any of that would have been respected and appreciated on the day or the day after. But to hide in your hole and refuse to engage because you can’t confront people with the reality of your own opinion is just the worst kind of cowardly and disrespectful behavior and has absolutely no place in a music business for which you are so demonstrably ill suited for.

Who the hell do we think we are? Well we’ve been asked to play a major private members club in Soho, passed an audition to go to the Middle East to play five star hotels (a touch disingenuous but individually perfectly true) and just got asked to play every month in one of the toughest to please Irish bars in London (The Boston Arms. Very true). And we’ve also just been signed up to play a whole chain of pubs including a few right in the heart of theatreland in the West End (signed up is a bit grand and yet to be confirmed but again, essentially true). So any opinion you may have on us now is irrelevant. We have zero respect for you and considerably less for your ‘opinions.’ We on the other hand have a solid track record of success which cannot be denied, as well as a track record of dealing with people in the right way, something you know nothing about.

On the other hand, where you’re coming from we have no idea and neither do we care. We’re sure in some part of your delusion you consider yourself a man. By what measure you could possibly claim that we have no idea. Everything about you shouts spineless and inadequate. We would be ashamed to be even remotely associated with you, let alone be represented by someone like you. The very fact that we put ourselves in a position where we were being judged by you at all makes us question our own judgement. We will not put ourselves in such a position again. And for that we will finally thank you.

Yours with no regard, no best wishes and zero respect

The Insiders

I get a reply within a few minutes. It says merely, ‘Good luck.’ I have to admit I’m mildly disappointed with that reaction.

Day 448

Wednesday March 29

Update. I’ve just spoken to the manager of the club we ‘auditioned’ at, and he said that no he didn’t pay Tony but yes he does do quite a few ‘auditions’ or whatever they are there. I told him our thoughts about the guy and he said, ‘Yes, he can come across a bit like that. I don’t really know what he’s up to with these things.’ So there you go. I consider this episode closed.

Day 449

Thursday March 30

Swear swear swearing swear. I’m not going to the Middle East. The project has started, the bass players have been chosen and I’m not one of them.

This was the last email I recieved on the matter just over two weeks ago. Would you read it and think they were considering other people and you might not be getting a shot?

Hi Mark,

Thanks for getting back to me. I forgot to say in my original email that these are all 6 month contracts. Is that still OK? And if so are you available between the 27th of March and 7th of April for the promo shoots? Let me know if so and I’ll send you some more information regarding booking you in for the shoots soon.

Thanks, ***

Last Friday was the 24^th so with the first of the dates coming the following Monday, I thought the time was right to send an email to find out just what was going on. By Tuesday I’d received no reply and it occurred to me that having contacted them late on Friday, my message might have been missed and then swamped with any emails that came in over the weekend. So I sent another email on Tuesday. No reply to that either. By today I decide the time has come to make a phone call. Besides, I’m getting seriously frustrated at the lack of news and just want to know what’s going on. The phone rings out. Balls. But ten minutes later the company returns the call. It’s the guy who actually auditioned us, not the guy I’ve been dealing with recently on email. As soon as he starts to talk I sense the way this is going and it’s not good. ‘When we were looking at what we needed, we realized we only needed two bass players,’ he says. If this was going to work out in any way positive we’d already be talking dates. He talks on and the more he does the more I know where this is going. ‘We considered all the audition notes and the ages and make-up of the bands concerned and chose the bass players that way.’ Then it comes. ‘So I’m sorry. You weren’t chosen at this particular time. But we’ll carry on and when the stars align I’m sure we’ll get something going with you.’ It sounds like a very rehearsed line from someone used to giving bad news to disappointed musicians. I tell him about my emails that I felt were ignored and he acknowledges that wasn’t quite right and he’ll have a look at it. Now I could go on about what the last email said and what it seemed to mean but to start to go down that road right now could lead to a whole torrent of stuff being unleashed so I swallow what he says very calmly, at least as far as he can tell, and end the call with a polite, ‘Thanks for getting back to me.’

And yes, the way they chose people is all fine and I can completely understand someone’s face fitting better than mine, not to mention the fact that yes, they may well have seen better players. But again, none of the possibility of this was given consideration in the last email.

As soon as I hang up the phone the disappointment and anger are absolutely crushing. I collapse into a sofa with absolutely no thoughts of what I’m going to do next. This is a huge blow and I feel it completely. Sometimes you don’t know how much you want something until it doesn’t happen. I knew how much I wanted this, and in some respects, needed it. I also know I’ve been saying it was yet to be fully confirmed just in case, but I was not at all prepared for how I feel right now. Empty, desolate and with a rage that threatens to take over. That last is purely because I feel they led me to believe we were on and it was just a matter of time before things got sorted. I’ve really not felt like this in London since I lost the job that got me here with all the circumstances and injustices that went with that little episode. That experience was far far worse with much more dire potential consequences but we are in sight of that particular ballpark. The subsequent anger that built over the coming days back then was far worse as well but again, this thing today approaches the ballpark.

All thoughts of practice or any kind of work or business totally evaporate. In fact, it’s a good job I finished my Spain deadline for today before making the call because if I hadn’t that could have been a tough one to get done. Right now I’ve just got to get out. I call Dan and let him know what’s just happened. I tell him he should make his own call and see what his situation is.

It all feels like a big tease and I’m sick of it. First the stress and pressure leading up to the audition and the euphoria of passing it. Then Dan being told he was going in October and me being told to get myself ready for November which dragged out. Then to be told we could be called at any minute. Then the whole Tony fiasco before the email of two weeks ago telling us we would be called about the Middle East thing as soon as dates were finalised. Then the waiting after. Not to mention the incessant, constant requests to put myself on standby for work as a TV/movie extra only to have every last one cancelled the day or days before. Yes. It all feels like one big tease. That’s it for now. I’m off to town to get away for a little while.

I do that and pour myself onto a bus to go into central London for an aimless anonymous wander as I try to process it all. Upstairs, the bus is wonderfully sunny and I have my favourite front seat as we drive into the city. I normally love the little journey from this perspective as the sights unfold all around but I’m not remotely in the mood for any of that and it just all washes over me.

I get off onto a bustling Oxford Street and make my way into the quieter backstreets where I walk blankly until it all opens up into Trafalgar Square. That will do. I find a lonely wall in the corner and stare across the concrete expanse watching the tourists and the pigeons come and go. I think I’m there for about half an hour but it might be considerably more. As I sit there I keep getting hit in waves as plans I’d been formulating in my head, all based around this, slowly emerge and then disintigrate in frothy bubbles. The biggest one of which is the realisation that, apart from being a major disappointment, as far I was concerned, this was to be the kickstart to a whole new career. Now none of that is happening. Not for foreseeable anyway, or at least not with this opportunity. Bubble one. There are more and each one causes my already dark mood to sink a little further. Yes, I know all about not counting chickens but these eggs were hatching and little beaks were showing themselves. So can you really blame me for starting to count them?

When I decide it’s time to go I have no idea where to. I could go anywhere really. Maybe find a riverside bar and have a drink. Maybe on one of the permanently moored boats opposite the South Bank and the London Eye. But no. That’s supposed to be a lovely pleasant experience, especially on a day like today. I think if I do that I’ll forever sully it and won’t be able to do it again without thinking of this. So with all the possibilities of the whole of the city of London spread out before me on this bright and sunny day, I instead opt to go back home and spend some more quiet alone time in the familiar surroundings of the front garden of The Vine.

I’m just finishing my first drink there when I get a tap on my backside. It’s Jenn who was just walking past on her way home. I was in the middle of debating whether or not I was going to stay for another drink but with her here now that mind’s made up. As she sits down, she’s quite literally full of the joys of our new spring. They quickly disappear when I fill her in on what’s happened. She gets the first round in and a little later on I get the second. But before I do, she says out of nowhere, ‘Mark, do you want me to go?’ I guess I’m not being the best company although I am managing to make the odd dry joke here and there. ‘No no no. Not at all. You’re fine.’  She settles down again and says, ‘You know, they’ll probably call you back in a week or so and say it’s on again. Someone’s going to drop out. You know they are.’ ‘Yeah, maybe,’ I say about as half heartedly as possible. But she’s convinced of it.

When we finish and get home, I call Dan and he’s had a completely different result. They’ve asked him to go in for a photo shoot next Friday. So he’s on, although I wonder when they would have told him if he hadn’t called. ‘Dan, forget about what’s happened with me,’ I say. ‘If you get the opportunity, take it.’ ‘Oh, I will,’ he says. At that I have a joke as I mock blow up at him for saying that. But then I quickly add, ‘Being serious, this phone call is the first time I’ve remotely enjoyed myself doing anything today. And you really do have to go for it if it’s there.’

So that’s where we are now. The dilemma not so long ago was whether to stick with The Insiders or take this opportunity. Now, with Dan having and taking his opportunity, it looks like I’m going to end up with neither. As for the care homes project, it’s had a really promising start and I was bracing myself for pulling the plug with us possibly moving away but it now looks like I’m going to be pulling the plug on it anyway and with nothing to replace it with. As I said. Waves. And as I also said, swear swear swearing swear.

Now I feel like writing a message similar to what Tony got to tell them what they can do with their aligning stars. But I won’t. I will have to send something though but right now I can’t begin to think what. Then I remember what I was told about only two bassists being needed. I look at the original email I received again and see it’s CC’d to one other person. I check him out and come up with someone who already plays in the Middle East and who looks like he’s been there some time. So we can be almost certain he was guaranteed one of the spots. On that, I can only conclude that they were in fact looking for just one bass player. For whatever reason, it wasn’t me and fair enough. But I refer you again to my thoughts on that last email.

So no. With this freshly torn wound it’s really not a good idea to write and send an email right now. It’s fair to say in the past I have developed a repuatation for cutting my nose off to spite my face. I have indeed been known to ‘get my own back’ not caring in the slightest how I might get hurt in my own crossfire. I once, in a fit of screw you, quit a busy professional band right as the Christmas and New Year dates started meaning I lost well over a thousand Euros for just over a week’s worth of gigging. And of course, by definition, that loss came right up to Christmas. I did that after my band leader – I’ll call him Simon – and after a whole bunch of other disrespectful moments, had told us not to book any time off in the days after Christmas as we’d be gigging possibly even on Boxing Day – December 26. Living in Ireland at the time I normally would have gone back to the family in Warrington for Christmas. But on his assertion, I didn’t. No gigs materialised then I heard from someone else in the band that we were never going to be playing on those dates. That guy happened to be Simon’s brother so he would have known. That little bit of fun came not long after Simon had left a gig as soon as it finished, with all the gear still up, saying we’d better be ready to load the van by the time he got back. We were. But then a few days later I discovered the reason he’d gone off to was to have a few drinks at a friend’s leaving do. It’s also fair to say we had a bit of a fractious relationship although most of the time we did manage a passing nod to amiability. Those two episodes coming right on the back of each other were it for me and I told him we were done and not to try to call me. Of course he did and of course I didn’t answer. Then the texts started as he asked me to least play the upcoming big money dates but I refused. That was my way at getting back at him for all the other times he’d been out of order. When my former bandmates appealed to me to come back for the shows, I refused again while apologising that they were getting caught in the crossfire even as bullets were finding their way to my own feet. Poor Paul even copped a bit as he was on holiday at the time having already gone to Warrington from Ireland for his Christmas. The fan was really properly getting hit on Boxing Day and there he was fielding calls from Simon telling him I’d quit and asking if he could, A, get me to come back or B, organise bands to cover. But no. I didn’t even relent to those overtures. That was that and I couldn’t care one bit about any consequences. In the end, realising I wasn’t answering his calls, Simon called me from the phone of a mutual friend. When I answered in an unsuspectingly breezy manner, he cut across me to let me know who it really was, and said in quite a sinister way that he knew where I lived. I immediately hung up and sent him a text saying, ‘I’m in *** pub right now. Come round and do what you think you’re going to do.’ It was the last I heard from him. I wonder what could have possibly happened to make me dig out that negative memory. To end on a slightly positive note however, a few years later me and Simon talked and I told him I would possibly deal with things in a different way now, although I made it clear to him I probably still would have quit. I wouldn’t say the hatchet was properly buried as it was out most of the time anyway, but I like to think that now we could at least be in the same room together, and maybe even remember some of the good times.

Now, as I said, I didn’t write the email to the company straight away, waiting until after the weekend. But I’ve decided to put it with this entry so that everything is together.

Yes I would have like to have been as vociferous as I was to our mutual friend Tony but, unlike with him, I still wish to work with this company despite everything. The email has developed over a few days and the language of it has become slightly toned down as I’ve calmed down and reflected on things. That doesn’t mean the anger has subsided. It’s definitely still there as this thing has continued to hit me in waves over the weekend each time I’ve remembered another plan or two I thought I was going to be able to put into action or each advantage I thought it was going to bring.

Well here it is.

Dear *** and ***

I decided I had to write this to let you know I’m very disappointed with how I’ve been treated by your company in the past few weeks.

First, the last email I received from your office stated quite clearly that I was purely waiting for further instructions as how to proceed. Quote: ‘…are you available between the 27th of March and 7th of April for the promo shoots? Let me know if so and I’ll send you some more information regarding booking you in for the shoots soon.’ I immediately confirmed I was available and after that heard nothing else.

Given how things unfolded this was 100 per cent and deliberately misleading. It could at least have said something like ‘if you’re selected.’ Instead it completely led me to believe that I was on the way to beginning the process. As such, it was a massive shock when I found out the project had moved on and I was not to be any part of it at this time.

This leads to my second grievance which is that I felt completely ignored as an email I sent to your office to find out where we were went unanswered. I sent it when we were very close to the start dates for the project. I should say I sent it twice, the first time late on a Friday. However, I soon realised it might have been missed before possibly getting swamped by anything that came in over the weekend so I followed it up on the Tuesday. After that, I only discovered I was no longer in consideration for this round when, having received no reply by Thursday, I thought the time had come to make a phone call and *** was kind enough to return the call and inform me of the situation. This makes me wonder when I was going to be told I wasn’t needed, or even if I was not going to be told at all.

I’m extra disappointed to have been treated like this after all the work I had done in preparing for and travelling to the audition in which I was successful. Not to mention all the work I’m sure you can imagine I did in preparing for the expected upcoming project; I was watching videos you had provided me with and learning the songs on them while also working from a provisional list provided after the audition. All to put myself in as good a position as possible to start work in earnest when the time came. No, no-one asked me to do this but I think it’s fair to say it would be expected of the kind of solid professionals you hope to take on and which I consider myself to be. To have done all that and still be treated and ignored as I have has left a very sour taste.

I still very much hope to work with you in the future but also hope that subsequent communications and dealings will be somewhat more positive and respectful than what I have covered above.

With all best wishes

Mark McClelland

About 20 minutes later I receive this reply

Dear Mark,

Thank you for your email.

We have taken on board your points and to be honest, I agree with some of the issues you have raised, we have not handled your particular case in a way that we deem satisfactory. In our defence it’s very difficult to manage multiple musicians who have auditioned and all expecting to be put into groups, especially when other musicians let us down. This makes the project difficult to manage in this instance. I do however appreciate your feedback, because we want to try and run all projects as clearly and smoothly as possible. All we can do is learn from this scenario and hope that in the future we do not mislead other musicians and have an open dialogue with everyone to manage expectations accordingly.

As previously mentioned I have taken on board your points and will try to learn from your situation so as to make the process for all current and potential future musicians to be as smooth as possible.

I hope you accept our apologies and allow us to learn from your particular scenario.

Kind Regards

This is my reply.

Hi ***

Thankyou so much for your quick reply and yes, I completely accept and appreciate your apologies. I also fully understand and appreciate the difficulties and issues you have mentioned there that you have to deal with in what I’m sure are some demanding circumstances.

Good luck with everything going forward and it’s also great that you’ve said, in your words, you want to learn from this particular scenario.

Again, I very much look forward to possibly working with you in the future.

All the best

Mark

So there you go. No boats or bridges burned. As for how I feel about the situation now, immeasurably better. I am absolutely delighted with their reply and reaction to my thoughts. I also suspect that next time they need a bass player, they’ll certainly remember me. And having acknowledged how this has been dealt with, I don’t think it’s too much to think I might have found myself bumped a little up the list. I’ll probably never know if this helped or not but that’s fine. I wouldn’t say closure’s quite been reached, but we’ve certainly moved on a little.

Day 450

Friday March 31

It’s the first of our care home shows today. A place in Camden at 4pm. Which means we have time to fit in a decent length rehearsal first. The main feature of this is making a start on Dan’s original set with three songs he sent me to work on. We pretty much get there with them, so that’s three down out of the ten he wants us to have ready to go live. But when we have a look at the list after finishing, we realise quite a few of them we played right at the beginning of The Insiders and of course we suddenly remember that one of them has intermittently been in our set. So far from having to really work on another seven like these three, a whole bunch of them just need a touch of revisiting. All of which means we’re nowhere near as far off having an original set as we thought.

With that bit of a result it’s time to go. A bus will take us from just outside Dan’s to practically all the way to the destination. When we get there I’m walking down the road and suddenly realise I’m on my own. I think Dan’s just got caught trying to cross the road or something so carry on. A little further on and he’s still nowhere to be seen so I stop and wait. Then he comes round the corner carrying his trolley. A wheel broke when he took it off the bus. Bugger. It’s not a crazy amount to carry with our a lightweight PA speaker, two mic stands and the guitar stands. But still no fun. I suggest he plonks all his stuff onto what I’m pulling which is just the bass speaker as we only need one PA speaker today if even that. Dan has an even better idea. The front of the trolley goes onto the top of mine and he supports the back of it while I do the pulling at the front. Kind of like tandem trollies. A bit of a delicate operation, especially when crossing a road but that’s how we turn up at the place.

Now here we are. It’s essentially a big living room in a residential home for mentally ill people, some of whom may still yet be able to make it on their own given time. Linda’s here as well, the lady who’s been my contact for a few of these and she’s taking pictures for their newsletter. So because of that we set up all the equipment just for photographic purposes; we know now that we’re only going to use the bass amp and run everything else totally acoustic.

This is far different from a normal gig. It’s more like setting up at a low key party. And that’s what the staff seem to have planned as snacks and soft drinks get laid out all around. Instead of just getting started as we normally would, we ask what they want. Old, new, fast, slow. In our minds, and possibly yours too, when we started this, we were thinking old people. But no this one isn’t like that at all. OK, we’re not playing to a load of students but it’s clear early on that they want a few upbeat numbers and the songs they want don’t go back nearly as far as we’ve been envisaging and also led to believe by a few friends. So we play pretty much our usual set and after three or four songs it all takes off as the whole room gets up and starts dancing. Directly to our left on a sofa is a pretty big guy and possibly the oldest person in the room. I’d place him at mid fifties. He didn’t seem that aware when we came in and just continued to stare at the TV. By the time we started he was asleep with his eyes remaining closed through the first few numbers. Four or five songs in and he stirs and starts to get up and hobble round the table in front of his sofa. I watch him with mildly captivated interest thinking he’s making his way to the kitchen to get a cup of tea. Instead, he reaches the other side of the table and joins in dancing with everyone else. As I’m watching him, all I can think is, ‘When was the last time he got up and danced?’ Dan will say later that he was thinking the exact same thing. This could be the single greatest moment so far in the life of The Insiders.

Now we’re really into it we start to take requests. With Dan’s Ipad and the fact that we’re sitting down for a change, we can greatly extend our repertoire as we read and play songs we’ve never played before. The first request comes in. No Woman No Cry. Bloody hell. Of all the songs. This was the one song me and Dan both had to sing and play for the Middle East audition. We’ve not gone anywhere near it since and now here we are, on today of all days, playing it again. We just get to it and the reaction is massive as they appreciate our efforts of trying a song they’ve requested that we didn’t have prepared. Now they’re warmed up and the requests keep coming in and whenever we can oblige them we do. There are just a couple where one of us is like, ‘I really don’t know how that one goes,’ so we explain that and instead try a different song by the same artist. It’s a whole new concept of gigging.

Halfway through as we’re in between songs, Linda comes up to me and says she’s going to try to get us into one of their projects in Soho which she thinks could be a paid gig. She also says she’s loved what she’s seen and, if asked, will happily write a letter in support of our application when the time comes.

That’s a real result from this because I’ve got to say I felt just a tad apprehensive that for whatever reason they might not have wanted us or might have thought we weren’t quite suitable. Which would have been a real kicker given as we were providing the thing for free. But my doubts have been shown to be completely unfounded. We were planning to play for about an hour but as that time comes round, no-one’s ready for it to stop so we continue. We also don’t want to overstay our welcome so in between songs we have a quick check with some of the staff and they ask if we can play for at least another 15 minutes. No problem. Which means the first show comes to just over an hour and a half.

The response to this first show of the project has been emphatic. As we’re packing away, the people who’ve come down for it can’t thank us enough and say we’ve given them a wonderful afternoon and the care staff say they’ve really enjoyed it too and hope to see us again soon. The head lady here had already hoped to see us every three to four weeks and she’ll be in touch to see when we can do it again. All cool.

We leave feeling like we’ve had a wonderful wonderful experience and that we’ve definitely just done something to contribute to the community and maybe advanced the cause for funding whatever that’s going to mean over the coming weeks.

Turning my phone back on I see I’ve had a call from Edyta at The Vine. I get back to her and she’s just asking if she can borrow a speaker for a function tonight. Well I’ll be walking by there soon and I feel like helping so yes.

When I walk in she’s hugely grateful and immediately asks if I want a drink. I wasn’t planning on it but OK. Be rude not to. That turns into a second free drink which she brings over to me as I’m finishing the first. Why, thankyou very much again.

During that second drink as I sit there in the corner surveying the bar and seeing people enjoying their Friday after work drinks, for the first time I start to think about what I’m going to do now I know the Middle East thing isn’t going to happen, at least not any time soon.

What I come up with is that it’s time to get serious with my reading. I’m already quite serious about it but now it should be properly ramped up. To do that that I need to adapt my practice regime to build it around reading. Yes I can still work on other things but that really should become my biggest focus now. And I’m well on the way. I think I’ll combine that with Phil Mann’s triad and then arpeggio books. After all, they also encompass reading music but also keep practice on other musical and improvisational benefits as well. Up to now I’ve integrated reading into my practice and have been making steady and measurable progress. I wonder what will happen if I shift things around and make it the focus of my practice instead. My post grad journalism course started every day with two hours of shorthand. Then I’d practice it more when I got home; given the pace at which the course rocketed along, working hard to get down what you’d learned that day was the only way you were really going to be able to keep up with what was going on the next day. A lot of people didn’t manage to fully keep up with it. I did and was one of only three people to achieve 100 words per minute distinction in the final exam – that is just two mistakes maximum allowed in a full transcription of a 200 word dictated piece. I entered my first journalism job with full working shorthand. After a four month course before which I knew absolutely nothing. I’m not saying I’m going to make that kind of progress with reading music, but it can be remarkable what you can achieve in a short time when your mind gets fully focused.

Then I start to think about what my next project could be. Well, if I’m going to look for something else, a band or whatever it is, I need to find one that’s paying now. Covers or originals I really don’t mind but I’m going to take my lesson from the Omater and Punching Preachers experiences. I’ll be joining no-one who says they’re having a go or are convinced they’ll be the next big thing. No matter how earnest or realistic their plans. No. I think I’ve paid enough London dues to be able to demand an act that is up rocking, rolling and earning. The hypothetical scenario is someone who’s just lost their bass player and needs someone to slot in as quickly as possible to get things going again. In all this I start to think about other overseas gigs I can look at similar to the one that’s just got away. I don’t know but I have seen them when I’ve been scouting around for bits me and Dan could do and have so far ignored them. It’s all there to be looked at. I just don’t fully know yet what it is I’m really looking for.

Literally is not a great word to use and I generally try to avoid it. But with the recent massive let down, I do still feel a bit in limbo and uncertain and I think I’m going to feel like that for just a little while longer. Which means that I am literally preparing to write a new chapter.